We live in a day when we have a list of rules or steps that are supposedly guaranteed to solve all our problems. Just do this, this way, in this order, and sit back and watch the results. Life just doesn’t always fit into a list. How many times have you sat down in the morning or the night before and wrote out your “to do” list for the next day? How many times have you been able to accomplish it as written?

Today in our challenge we are going to talk about how to live lives of sexual and emotional integrity based on love not legalism.

Day Six

Our first look at legalism vs love: How far is too far?

As young women, we pushed the envelope while we were dating. Kissing on the first date was almost an expectation. Allowing him to go to first, second, or even third “base” was considered okay, as long as he couldn’t proclaim to his friends that he’d hit a “home run” with you. But all of this sexual activity during dating didn’t prepare us for true love, lifetime commitments, and faithful marriages as we thought it would. Instead, it prepared us to crave intensity and excitement that only a new relationship brings, causing us to be discontent once we marry and the relationship ages.

Because we never learned sexual self-control as single women (not just physical, but emotional, mental, and spiritual self-control), it seems extremely difficult to exercise it with the added stressors of two kids, a minivan, and a mortgage payment. How disappointing to discover that the wedding band placed on our finger didn’t change us at all!
~ Shannon Ethridge

If our question is “how far is too far?” Then you are living out of legalism not love. Love doesn’t seek to see how close it can get to getting it’s selfish desires fulfilled before it has crossed the line into whatever church, society, family, and friends has chosen is the line of sin.

Love does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, (1 Corinthians 13:5)

In Dannah Gresh’s book What Are You Waiting For, she shared how a young man had went to his youth minister to ask him how far was too far, the advice given by the youth minister, “Anything above the waist is okay.”

Hello?!?!? WHAT??? Anything above the waist?

Ladies let me share a little something with you.

Did you see it?

Let the wife of your youth satisfy, her breast, the young man is too be exhilarated with her love. Yes, my breast belong to my husband and no one else. My husband is to be satisfied in my breast. Your breast do not belong to him and they are not to be out on display to be seen by him.

Miss swimsuit issue girl, and playboy girl, and pro-football cheerleader girl, and music pop star, and silver screen movie girl, and young woman sitting in the Sunday school class and worship service with the cleavage hanging out, and young lady on Facebook, and young lady with the cell phone who cries out for attention through posting and texting inappropriate pics… those breast are to be for one man.

I was so very proud over the public stand of a young VS model who finally realized that she was damaging her marriage and others by what she was doing… and she was causing young men to stumble…

She made her decision out of Christian love… not legalism… she chose to walk away and give her body back to her husband for his pleasure alone. I also loved that she did not condemn those who hadn’t followed her lead… yet. (I believe many will)

The majority of us do what we do and have done what we have done because we used the attention to fill a void in our heart… but this void can only be filled with Christ and can only be satisfied in Him and in obedience to Him through our love for Him.

Therefore, a list of laws about what women of integrity can and can’t wear, should and shouldn’t do and say, and so on, isn’t the answer…

The answer lies not in legalism but in Christian love.

~ Shannon Ethridge

How do we practically live this out? How do we learn to live by love instead of legalism?

If we love God, love our neighbor, and love ourselves (in that order), then we can live far above any set of rules or regulations. We have freedom to live apart from any legalistic standards when we live by the spirit of love.
~ Shannon Ethridge

When we live our lives through the eyes of legalism, we have a list of rules to keep. We make our choices and decisions through looking at the rules instead of the person. Rules are stone and cold and you can’t hurt them, you can break them, but it doesn’t hurt the rules, it only hurts you.

However a person is not made of stone… if you break them it does hurt.

Here is a little comparison of ways we can ask ourselves questions as we seek “permission”. Look closely and see if you usually ask questions of compromise and if you do may we learn to instead ask questions of integrity.  

Questions of Compromise vs Questions of Integrity

Are my actions lawful?
Are my actions loving to others?

Will anyone find out?
Is this something I’d be proud of?

Would anyone condemn me?
Is this my highest standard?

Is this socially acceptable?
Is this in line with my convictions?

Are my clothes too revealing?
Am I dressing for attention?

How can I get away with saying this?
Would this be better left unsaid?

Will this hurt anyone?
Will this benefit others?

Yes, we live in a free country and we are free in Christ. But we are not to use our freedoms to enslave another, or to allow the enemy to take our freedoms and use them to destroy another.

If we want to gain the prize of sexual integrity, we may need to let go of some of our “freedoms” (in dress, thoughts, speech, and behavior) in order to serve the best interest of others out of love.

~ Shannon Ethridge

Yes, honey you have the “freedom” to wear that, to do that, to say that, to go there, to post that, to text that… but at what cost? 

I can’t draw a line in the sand and say don’t cross that. That far is too far. That skirt is too short. That shirt is too low. That comment was too far. That post was too risque. That flirt was too far.

All I can tell you is to ask yourself what your motive is? What’s the why behind your actions. Is the why pleasing in His sight?

For a Christian woman, sexual and emotional integrity means that her thoughts, words, emotions and actions all reflect an inner beauty and a sincere love for God, others, and for herself. This doesn’t mean she is never tempted to think, say, feel, or do something inappropriate, but she tries diligently to resist these temptations and stands firm in her convictions. She doesn’t use men in an attempt to get her emotional cravings met, or entertain sexual or romantic fantasies about men she is not married to. She doesn’t compare her husband to other men, discounting his personal worth, and withholding a part of herself from him as punishment for his imperfections. She doesn’t dress to seek male attention, but she doesn’t limit herself to a wardrobe of ankle-length muu-muus, either. She may dress fashionably and look sharp or may even appear sexy (like beauty, sexy is in the eyes of the beholder), but her motivation isn’t self-seeking or seductive. She presents herself as an attractive woman because she knows she represents God to others.

~ Shannon Ethridge  

We are women. We have physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs. All of these needs are meant to be met in Christ. We cannot manipulate men, whether it be our husband or not, to get our needs met. We must come to our Savior. He is jealous for us, He loves us, oh how He loves us. All we need is Him and in Him…

In our challenge so far we have been focused on taking out the obvious trash. The challenges have been to fast from magazines, books, movies, and music that glorifies or glamorizes sin and feeds your mind and spirit on things that tear us down instead of building us up.

During this trash fast we are to be focusing our hearts and minds on remembering how God says He created us by meditating on Psalm 139. If we feel the need to get wrapped up in a good love story we are to be reading the Song of Solomon and digging deeper into the truths in this beautiful book. When it’s movie and tv time, we need to be very selective during this challenge, if we watch at all, and if we do watch, don’t veg out. Try to count the number of times sex is thrown in our face and that not being a healthy biblical account of sex between a man and his wife. When it’s music time, until March 17th, we need to fill our mind and heart and soul with only songs that connect us to Our Creator. Until March 17th, let’s read and study and focus on growing in the grace and knowledge of God and His everlasting lovingkindness toward us.

Day Five: Beginning our taking of personal inventory.

Here is where we start digging deep. We begin to focus today on weeding out deception…

“Many believe that just because they are not involved in a physical, sexual affair they don’t have a problem with sexual and emotional integrity. As a result, they engage in thoughts and behaviors that compromise their integrity and rob them of true sexual and emotional fulfillment.”

“Men and women struggle in different ways when it comes to sexual integrity. While a man’s battle begins with what he takes in through his eyes, a woman’s begins with her heart and her thoughts. A man must guard his eyes to maintain sexual integrity, but because God made women to be emotionally and mentally stimulated, we must closely guard our hearts and minds as well as our bodies…”

 ~ Shannon Ethridge

Now take this Scripture and apply it to you as a woman and our struggle: “I tell you that any woman who envisions a man longingly has already committed adultery with him in her heart.”

Ladies our adultery does not begin with lustful eyes… it begins with a lustful thought and a longing heart. We don’t undress a man with our eyes. We envision him undressing us… looking deep in our eyes and seeing the real us.  We envision that he pulls us close and whispers his undying love and devotion in our ears and then whisks us up in his arms and carries us away to a place of deep emotional fulfillment…

Am I close here?

Here are some contrast that Shannon brings out her book:

Men: crave physical intimacy                           

Women: crave emotional intimacy

Men: give love to get sex                                

Women: give sex to get love

Men: body can disconnect from mind and soul 

Women: body, mind, heart, soul, intricately connected

Men: stimulated by what they see                   

Women: stimulated by what you hear

Men: recurrent physical needs cycle                

Women: recurrent emotional needs cycle

Men: vulnerable to unfaithfulness in the absence of physical touch

Women: vulnerable to unfaithfulness in the absence of emotional connection

Are you beginning to see why we have began this challenge with a trash fast? Are you beginning to see how the enemy has been able to use the media outlets to seduce us and confuse us and tempt us and yet wonder why we feel the way we do when we have not “technically” committed a sinful act?

Ladies… I didn’t mention this in the trash take-out but let me approach it now… Internet chats… be careful. “Oh he’s just a good friend” is one of the biggest lies the enemy feeds us and we gobble it up just as quickly as Eve gobbled up the fruit of that tree that got us all in the mess to begin with. If you are connecting emotionally with a man that is not your husband… or if you are unmarried and it is somebody else’s husband… RUN!

Today we are going to look over a checklist of questions to consider. This is more personal inventory time. These question require a simple yes or no answer. Consider each question honestly. This is just between you and God, precious one, don’t hide from your own flesh.

ARE YOU ENGAGED IN A BATTLE? 

1) Is having a man in your life or finding a husband something that dominates your thoughts?

2) If you have a man in your life, do you compare him to other men (physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually)

3) Do you often think of what your life will be like after your husband is dead, wondering who the “next man” could be?

4) Do you have sexual secrets that you don’t want anyone else to know about?

5) Do you feel like a nobody if you don’t have a love interest in your life? Does a romantic relationship give you a sense of identity?

6) Do you seem to attract bad or dysfunctional relationships with men?

7) Do men accuse you of being manipulative or controlling?

8  Do you feel secretly excited or powerful when you sense that a man finds you attractive?

9) Do you have a difficult time responding to your husband’s sexual advances because you feel he should meet your needs first?

10) Is remaining emotionally or physically faithful to one person a challenge for you?

11) Do you often choose your attire in the morning based on the men you will encounter that day?

12) Do you find yourself flirting or using sexual innuendos (even if you do not intend to) when conversing with someone you find attractive?

13) Do you resent the fact that your husband wants sex more often than you do, and you would rather he just masturbate so you don’t have to perform?

14) Do you have to masturbate when you get sexually aroused?

15) Do you read romance novels because of the fantasies they evoke within you or because they arouse you sexually?

16) Have you used premarital or extramarital relationships to “medicate” your emotional pain?

17) Is there any area of your sexuality that is not known by your husband, is not approved by your husband, or does not involve your husband?

18) Do you spend more time or energy ministering to the needs of others through church or social activities than to your husband’s sexual needs?

19) Do you use pornography either alone or with a partner?

20) Do you fantasize about being intimate with someone other than your husband? (this includes if you are not married, that is some one’s husband or at least it probably will be one day)  

21) Do you have a problem making and maintaining close female friends?

22) Do you converse with strangers in Internet chat rooms?

23) Have you ever been unable to concentrate on work, school, or the affairs of your household because of thoughts or feelings you are having about someone else?

24) Do you the word victim describes you?

25) Do you avoid sex in your marriage because of the spiritual guilt or dirty feeling you experience afterward?

Whew… yes that’s a lot to think about.

By the way this list was just to make you think. It was not a list to see how horrible you are because of the number of yes’s you had or to make you pat yourself on the back because of the number of no’s you had.

We are focusing these next days on personal inventory and weeding out the subtle deceptions that the enemy has been able to sneak in our hearts and minds…

Our goal is freedom.

Our goal is to stand before our Savior unashamed…

Day Four:
This is the last day of the “obvious” trash take out.

This one might be the hardest for some.
Are you ready?
Today turn off the tunes.
For the next thirty days listen only to Christian worship music. Listen only to music that glorifies God and sings of your love to Him and His to you.

Here’s the simple fact… music makes memories.

Music is easily memorized.
God tells us that the song will not be forgotten from the lips and it is a witness that will testify… What songs are on your lips and what testimony do they bring?

Not only is music easily memorized, but it also is also mood invoking. There is a reason that more people change churches because of the music rather than because of the Biblical teaching or even the relationships built. Music moves us.

Music moves us from the locker room to the game. We put on fast beat and pumped up music to get the team fired up as they head out to the court or field to play the game.

Music moves us in the church as we begin the service with music to get everyone “in the spirit”

And yes, music moves us to the bedroom.

Music is used to make memories that move us immediately to that place where we heard that song. That’s why so much time and effort goes into the songs that we will choose to have at our weddings. We will begin picking out the songs and filing them in our memory bank when just little girls…

Music is used to intoxicate and it works, It can reach a place in our souls that mere words alone sometimes cannot.

Shannon Ethridge writes, “I don’t listen to secular. I have a lot of sexual memories that are attached to particular songs from my past. When I am out in public, I occasionally hear a song that sends me back to a particular place, time, or relationship evoking memories I’d rather forget. Funny how music has the power to do that.”

I don’t listen to secular music either… 
When I was wholly surrendered to my Jesus and I sat in my car or turned on the radio in the house I heard the lyrics I had been singing for really the first time.
I couldn’t sing them anymore.
I also realized that the music stirred things in me that I was trying to learn how to put to death as I walked in the Spirit and not my flesh. If I was to have victory, this music had to go.
I also, like Shannon, hated the memories that I had attached to many of these songs.

I chose to turn these off and make new memories with my Christ.
When I say I don’t listen to secular music, it’s not that I am trying to be “holier than thou” it’s just I had rather remember a moment with my God and be stirred by His Spirit rather than my flesh.

When I hear “Alabaster Box” by CeCe Winans I remember the grace that God poured out on me.
When I hear “What Are You Waiting For” by Natalie Grant, I immediately go to 2006 in Poland and I remember to pray for those I had an opportunity to share that experience with.
When I hear “Revelation Song” by Kari Jobe, I immediately go to our church’s Judgment Seat production and I remember to pray for those who have came through it and been in it.
When I hear “Majesty” by Delirious I go to Big Stuf camps and I remember the moment that my God had me on my face before Him in an awesome time of worship and thanksgiving and I also remember to pray for those that were there that year and I remember to pray for Ryan Wade, because he has played that song many times at church.
When I hear “Praise You in This Storm” by Casting Crowns I remember my dear friend Brenda Folette and how God used this song to carry her through a hard time.
When I hear “Held” by Natalie Grant I remember my dear sweet Grace Henry and her strength and beauty as she battled cancer in faith and now stands victorious with her Savior.
When I hear “Hosanna” by Hillsong United I remember to pray for Melanie Dickerson because I have heard her sing it so beautifully and in a true spirit of worship.
When I hear the hymn “Tis So Sweet To Trust in Jesus” and “Made to Love You” by Toby Mac I remember the night my husband and I renewed our vows and I pray for our marriage and for him.

I can go on and on with the musical memories… and these are the memories I want to make and these are the memories I want to remember.

Yes, I have a couple of select secular songs that I hang on to… because they hold memories for me and my husband… I walked down the wedding isle with him the first time to “Don’t Want To Miss A Thing” by Aerosmith and then there are tons of songs that bring to memory our dates and kisses…

…but for the next thirty days, let’s focus on our God and our relationship with Him.

Ladies for the next thirty days… flood your minds with memories of grace and mercy. If you don’t have those memories, let’s make some this next thirty days. This next thirty days let the song that will not be forgotten from your lips be one of delight to your God and let it be a witness that testifies of His love.

When you have the choice, choose to listen to Christian praise and worship music. Spend this next thirty days being wooed by the Lover of your soul.

Okay ladies here’s the thing, we have a couple more days of trash take out and then we are going to begin to dig even deeper… the easy part is taking out the obvious trash. The hard part is when we begin to do inventory on all the rest. The hard part is when we have to discern on what’s good, what’s useful, what’s relevant for our life today, what needs to be passed on to someone else, what needs to be put away in the attic, and what might be discovered as trash after closer inspection.

Don’t panic, this is not just a “Thou Shall Not” challenge… we are just clearing out the clutter so we can see more clearly.

Today’s trash take out might be a little more difficult… tv shows and the chick-flick. Aren’t you glad I waited till after Valentine’s Day to initiate this challenge..

This challenge has to begin with waking up your senses. Shannon Ethridge shared about an experiment she does with youth as she teaches on sexuality. She records twelve minutes of prime time tv (she chose Friends and Seinfeld) and asks them to watch and count every sexual innuendo they see or hear. She said the group always did the same thing, they caught the first three or four but then would get caught up in the humor and jokes and would forget to give the sign, most would end up with eleven or twelve sexual innuendos. When in reality in that twelve minutes there were forty-one.

Shannon writes, “As a society, we have become so desensitized by sexual messages that we often unscrew our heads, put them under the Lazy-boy recliner, and tolerantly allow the television to fill our minds with worldly scripts. Once our minds are corrupted, our hearts memorize these scripts, and then they seep into our lives.”

Everything you choose to take in through your mind can be stored up in your heart, and it is your heart that determines the direction you will take and the choices you will make in the future when confronted with temptation. If you fill your mind with images of sexually compromising comments and situations, you will become desensitized to similar scenarios in your own life. ~ Shannon Ethridge

I used to love Friends. There were several shows that I used to love to watch and would laugh my butt off… but on December 9, 2001, I wholly surrendered my life to Christ… and when I sat down to watch these shows after this date, this moment, I was appalled and embarrassed by what I saw.

I could not watch it. I had never heard or seen it through the eyes of Christ and now as I watched it… I couldn’t laugh. I was laughing at the things that my Jesus went to the cross for. It just wasn’t funny to me anymore. 

My sweet sister… you have a choice. For the next  thirty-one days view your tv through the eyes of Christ. If you ask Him, trust me He will let you see. He came to bring sight to the blind… but first we must admit that we cannot see.

Now we must discuss the chick-flick.

If nothing else, for this next thirty-one days as you fast from the flick, look at how much money you can save from not spending the funds on a movie and popcorn 🙂

My husband and I rarely go to the movies. When we do go we are diligent to check out the movie thoroughly on Plugged In before we go see it. I don’t care what Hollywood rates it… if it is full of sexual content that exists outside the marriage bed, even without nudity, we do not attend.

You see I don’t find this sacred act between man and wife as a joke to be ridiculed and demeaned by people who are trashing it up and making it of no more importance than going to the bathroom. I also am not going to waste my time watching two strangers exchange bodily fluids. I most definitely am not going to pay to see that.

Anyway.

The chic-flick, ladies here’s the thing. Let’s get serious. For the married woman reading this… I used to hear married people say this, “It doesn’t matter where you get your appetite as long as you eat at home”. When I was living apart from Christ and unmarried and I heard that I thought, well that makes sense… but now as a married woman and surrendered to Christ… THAT IS ONE OF THE MOST STUPID THINGS I HAVE EVER HEARD!

Marriage is about true intimacy, you can’t have intimacy if your mind is having sex with one person and your body with another. My husband wants all of me and I want all of him. I want him to be aroused and fulfilled by me alone and he deserves the same from me. I don’t want him comparing my body to the latest top model and therefore I am not going to compare him to the leading man’s scripted words in the latest love story.

Men are designed to be aroused visually… ladies we are designed to be aroused emotionally. When a man says the right things and is able to smile the right way… How do you think Eve was deceived? She was emotionally manipulated and the words of the serpent captivated her and then she partook of what she knew was wrong. Unable to walk away.

Let me ask you… what fruit was dangled before you in the last chic-flick movie you watched? Did it make you appreciate your husband, or did it make you wish he was more like so and so? Did it make you long again for the excitement of that first kiss, that first date, that unknown angst?

We must guard our hearts.

We must guard our emotions.

Single ladies… that goes for you too.

Hollywood glamorizes the start of a relationship and then leaves you with this false expectation that this is true love… it’s not. True love is a love that stays after the excitement of the new wears off and stays long enough to have that excitement pop up and surprise you over and over again because true love is patient and it endures all things. We need to protect our marriages and if we are single, our future marriages “by resisting any thoughts that may evoke feelings of disillusionment and disappointment with reality” (Shannon Ethridge). 

Shannon has a little check list to ask yourself before you watch, read, or listen so that you may be proactive in protecting and guarding your heart so that you might become a woman of sexual and emotional integrity.

Ask yourself:

* Does this glamorize ideas or situations that oppose my Christian values?

*Is it uplifting to my spirit, and does it make me grateful for what God has given me, or does it make me depressed and dissatisfied?

*Does this cause me to think about things that build my character, or does it tear it down?

I know this post has been a little more forceful than the last two… but it comes after a night of  Awana T&T when I had 4th-6th grade girls who were too distracted talking about little boyfriends and singing “I got passion in my pants” and “I’m sexy and I know it” to be putting the Word of God in their hearts… it was already too full of trash…

Just think where their little hearts will be at your age if they continue down the path they are on… guess what you are leading the way… so what path are you going to walk? When the little hearts around you follow you where will you lead them…  

Today in our Thirty-three Day Challenge we continue to work on taking out the trash…

Day two:
Today I want you to put away the love stories, the romance novels… they. got. to. go. Yes, even Christian romance novels. I am a woman who loves books, so I won’t encourage you to dump these novels in the trash as I did the cheap magazines, but for the next thirty-two days I challenge you to put them out of sight. Don’t read them.

Then if after this challenge you can read the ones you have without grieving the Holy Spirit within you then by all means keep them, but if after this fast from them, you pick them up to read and your new starved and fresh eyes sees them in a different way… by all means trash them.

Now my beloved, we are women. Our hearts are drawn to the romance novel because we were created for love. We were created to be appreciated and honored and admired. We were “presented” to Adam in the garden by our Heavenly Father.

When we are married to our husbands we are presented to them. The doors are swung open and we step out into his view and we search his eyes for “that look”, you know the one… the one that says, WOW!!!

We were created to be swept off our feet by our knight in shining armor… to be fought for and desired more than any other… to be worth dying for… we yearn for another to love us like this… by choice… not because they are related to us.

So we read these romance novels and we picture we are the heroine and we get to create our man in our image…

There lies the problem.

“While most women don’t lust after men’s bodies (although there are certainly exceptions to this rule), we cross the line in sexual integrity in other ways. When we engage in emotional affairs, mental fantasies, and unhealthy comparisons,we are crossing the line of sexual integrity and undermining God’s plan to grant us ultimate sexual and emotional fulfillment with (our current our future) husband. We need to make a covenant with the eyes of our hearts not to look at other people (real or imagined) to fulfill our emotional needs and desires in ways that compromise our sexual integrity, whether we are married or single.”

~ Shannon Ethridge (quote from Every Woman’s Battle, pg 26)

Our God knows our desire. He created it. He is the ultimate lovesick fool… He is the One that has woven His whole love story into our lives. He is the One who willingly has come to rescue His bride… and yes He is the One who will come as our Knight in shining armor. He is the One who sweeps us off our feet and takes us in His arms and wisks us away to Paradise and showers us with undying love and devotion. He is the one who looks at us and goes, WOW!

If you want to read a romance story read the Song of Solomon.

There are three main characters in this book of Scripture, the woman, the man, and the chorus group 🙂 Read through the chapters of this book and discern who is speaking when.
I write in my Bible so I took a pink colored pencil and colored a circle over the number of the verses that was the woman speaking and used a blue for the man and green for the chorus group.

Spend today meditating on this verse

Oh precious one, your love is to be awoken by your husband or your future husband and all love before that belongs to Christ. It does not belong to a fictional male but female created characters. These romance novels introduce you to the body of a man with the mind of a female. You are putting expectations on your current or future husband that they will never be able to measure up to. This will cause you to be weighted down in false disappointment in them and in your relationship.

It’s a false expectation…
It’s deception… and whose the father of that?

I know first hand the destruction that can come from these type of books. I began with Sweet Valley High and then by late Jr High I was reading Harlequin Romance novels. I had in my mind and head how this experience was to be. I had awakened my mind to an emotion my body and heart was not ready for.

It led me down a road of heartache and destruction that almost killed me emotionally, spiritually, and physically… It began little… but a little sin never satisfies… it only makes you crave for more. You seek sin like an addict seeks their next hit. You hate it, you hate yourself, but you keep thinking, keep convincing yourself, that this time will be different… this time will satisfy… but it never does and it never will.

Truth is what is real.
Truth is what will satisfy.
Jesus is truth.
God’s Word is truth.

If you want to get caught up in a love story, get caught up in the one that will be told until all eternity.