Principle #1: Good (Teach your children godly sexuality part 6)

In our previous post we saw that our sexuality is good because it reflects the:

• community of the Trinity
• oneness of the Trinity
• love of the Trinity
• delight & joy in the Trinity
• joy of the Trinity in Creation
• ultimate ecstasy of our union with Christ

So we need to communicate the goodness of our bodies and our sexuality to our children.  We need to affirm and bless in our children what God blessed in creation.

But the truth is we might not know its goodness – intellectually we can see what I’ve said is true but we don’t feel comfortable – we don’t know the “without shame” (Gen 2:25).

We live in a fallen world – when Adam and Eve disobeyed God they broke fellowship with God – and so history is man trying to replace that gap, that pleasure with something else and so see sexuality as god. 

But fellowship was also broken with each other – they lost that sense of unconditional love – and so hurt/rejection can lead to us to see our sexuality as gross.

And your parents will have been affected and then passed on their beliefs to you.  Those around you at school, work or church will have also assigned a value to sexuality which may have influenced you.  And finally any sexual experiences you may have had will also affect your core beliefs.

So before we look at how to apply the first principle to situations with our children we’re going to spend a little time reflecting on the inheritance we were given and asking the Holy Spirit to highlight the lies that you have believed about His good gift.  This is important because as we mentioned in a previous post: it's hard to pass on wholeness if you're not whole yourself.

Did you see your parents celebrate the goodness of God’s gift with each other?

Positive – on a rating of 1-10 how positive were your parents’ responses to your sexuality?

How did that make you feel about your sexuality? 

Satan is the "father of lies" (Jn 8:44) who seeks to "steal and kill and destroy" (Jn 10:10).
Ask the Holy Spirit to highlight specific occasions where you believed a lie.

We need to replace lies with truth so that we can be transformed (Rom 12:2) and that truth will set us free (Jn 8:32).  Ask Jesus, the truth, to speak the truth about His good gift in each of these situations.

How have these lies affected your marriage and your response to your children’s sexuality?

Ask the Father to restore what has been lost and make it new (Isa 61).

My prayer for you is that our glorious God meets with you and bring you healing and transformation.  After this it important to maintain and walk in the freedom you have received and how we act flows out of what we believe ("For as he thinks in his heart so is he" Prov 7:23a NKJV). One way to help you replace core beliefs is to write down the truths that you have learned and declare them aloud as faith comes by hearing the word of God (Rom 10:17).  In the same way when Jesus was being attacked about his identity ("if you are the Son of God") he quoted scripture out loud (Mat 4:3, 6).

If you need further help then I do recommend a Sozo, or Restoring the Foundations, or Freedom in Christ as helpful ministries.

Feel free to comment below or if you prefer to ask something privately then do contact us via our website.

Next time we will start applying the truths we have learned about our sexuality to common scenarios faced when parenting.

Principle #1: Good (Teach your children godly sexuality part 5)

In the previous three posts we talked about how we can establish firm foundations in your heart, in your marriage and with your children. We are now ready to move onto the four principles of how we communicate godly sexuality to our children.

Our first principle is that God created our sexuality and declared it to be very good.

So why is it good?  Let's take a look in Genesis:

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground." ... God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.
(Gen 1:27-28, 31a NIV)

First we see that our sexuality ("male and female") and sexual intimacy ("be fruitful and increase in number") were created before the fall and therefore they were made pure, unspoilt and therefore good.

Is that the only reason it's good?  Well we know that everything was made through Him [Jesus] and for Him (Col 1:16).  Creation is an extravagant love gift to Jesus from the Father and so it is good because the Father only gives good gifts (Lk 11:13; Jas 1:17).

But in addition we see that:

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. (Rom 1:20a)

So God's divine nature is made known through creation or as David says "The heavens declare the glory of God..." (Ps 19:1).  Hence Creation is good because it brings glory to God as it speaks of how amazing He is.

But unlike the animals who were simply called into existence by God's spoken word, all of our bodies were personally formed by His hands (the word "formed" in Gen 2:7 is used of a potter with clay). and declared "very good"

So why do our bodies, our sexuality and our sexual intimacy give Him such pleasure and glory?  Because unlike animals we’re made in His image and so our sexuality is theographic (not pornographic) as it reflects the glory of our Trinitarian God.

Let’s look at six ways how...

Firstly our sexuality reflects the community of the Trinity.

Since God is a community of Father, Son and Spirit and we are made in his image (Gen 1:27) this is why God said “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen 2:18a) and He says “I will make a helper suitable for him.” (Gen 2:18b).  Like man but not like man  - male and female in His image (Gen 1:27).

But we are not only male and female as God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gen 2:7) and God’s breath represents the Holy Spirit (eg Job 33:4; Jn 20:22) . 

So we are also a trinity (male, female and Spirit) like the God we image* .

Secondly our sexuality reflects the oneness and intimacy of the Trinity.

Jesus prayed  for us “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you...that they may be one as we are one” (Jn 17:21-22; see also Jn 14:10; 17:11) .

So there is unity, oneness and intimacy in the Godhead.  Since we are made in the image of God, man was first made one (Gen 2:7) and then from that oneness man was made two (Gen 2:21-22) but designed to become “one flesh” again (Gen 2:24; Mt 19:6a):

Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man." That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. (Gen 2:22-25 NIV emphasis mine)

And hence Adam wants to re-unite with the missing part of himself that the women embodies and become whole and completely himself and be the full image of God.

We’ll talk about this much more when we look at the second principle.

Thirdly, our sexuality reflects the love of the Trinity.

In Jn 17:24 we see that the Father (the lover) has been eternally loving the Son (the beloved) by the Spirit (eg Rom 15:30) and so John declares that "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." (1 Jn 4:8).  So we are created as lovers in the image of God.  Adam (the lover) was made to love Eve (the beloved) by the Spirit.

Again we’ll talk about this much more when we look at the second principle.

Fourthly, our sexuality reflects the delight and joy found in the Trinity.

God made our sexuality and intimacy to be pleasurable as it reflects the delight and pleasure experienced within the Trinity† .

In fact the bible is the story of three marriage celebrations: Adam & Eve at the beginning, the marriage supper of the Lamb at the end and the marriage song of Solomon in the middle:

Your breasts are like two fawns, like twin fawns of a gazelle that browse among the lilies. ... Your lips drop sweetness as the honeycomb, my bride; milk and honey are under your tongue. The fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon. You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride; you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain. Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates with choice fruits, with henna and nard, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of incense tree, with myrrh and aloes and all the finest spices. You are a garden fountain, a well of flowing water streaming down from Lebanon.
She: Awake, north wind, and come, south wind! Blow on my garden, that its fragrance may spread everywhere. Let my beloved come into his garden and taste its choice fruits.
(Sgs 4:5, 11-16 NIV)

Here we see them celebrate and enjoy God’s good gift without shame.  This is the way God made it and He is pleased when His children enjoy His good gifts: "For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving" (1 Tim 4:4).

Fifthly, our sexuality also reflects the joy of the Trinity in creation.

Our Three-in-One God was complete and needed nothing but he chose to create life out of love for His Son (eg Col 1:16) to share that love, and that creation was a joy and delight.  We can see this in the angels shouting for joy (Job 38:7b) during creation.  This joy and delight was also experienced in the Trinity, for example Jesus personified by wisdom at the Father’s side in Proverbs:

Then I was constantly at his side.
I was filled with delight day after day,
   rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world
   and delighting in mankind.
(Prov 8:30-31)

Since we are made in his image - a husband and wife are complete but they too desire to have children to love.  And we mirror the joy and delight in the Trinity by creating life out of our sexual intimacy.

Finally, our sexuality reflects the ultimate ecstasy of our union with Christ

Jesus is "the Desire of all nations" (Hag 2:7 NKJV) and the pleasure of our marriage consummation is meant to be a shadow of our ultimate ecstatic union with Christ:

Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting:
 
“Hallelujah!
    For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
 Let us rejoice and be glad
    and give him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come,
    and his bride has made herself ready”
(Rev 19:6-7)

Then Christ and the church will become "one flesh" (See Eph 5:31-32)‡ and our souls will be satisfied as with the richest of foods (Ps 63:5). 

We will not find ultimate satisfaction in our spouse (or any other part of creation) as it is only in Jesus that we will find the end to all our deepest longings.  Amen.


* Note that the number three is also the Hebrew number of completeness.  You can see this in the Hebrew language which doesn't have a word for more or most.  So if something was more holy you would say "holy, holy" and if it was the most holy you would say "holy, holy, holy".  Saying it three times indicates the entirety of something.  I don't think it's any coincidence that this ties in with the Trinity.

†  If you're anything like me you might struggle with this point.  God having fun - surely He's sombre and only interested in serious things?  But we see this joy and delight throughout the bible.  God ordains celebratory feasts in His law.  David speaks of joy and pleasures at God's righthand (Ps 16:11),  God rejoices over us (Is 62:5 or Zeph 3:17b), Jesus was accused of being a glutton and a drunkard (Lk 7:34) and was full of joy (Lk 10:21) and wants to give us life to the full (Jn 10:10) and faced the cross for the joy set before him (Heb 12:2).  The fruit of the spirit is joy (Gal 5:22), the Kingdom of heaven is righteous, peace and joy (Rom 14:17) and when Jesus returns it's a wedding feast (Rev 19:7).  And in creation we just see the duck-billed platypus and we know.  And we in His image are gifted with a sense of humour.  

‡ If anyone asks you "what is heaven like?" the theologically correct answer is "better than sex".  I recommend the excellent book "Fill these hearts" by Christopher West.  This whole area will become the subject of our future "Godly Desire" blog.

Firm Foundations: Godly parenting (Teach your children godly sexuality part 4)

Building Firm Foundations with your children: godly parenting

As we saw in our previous post: marriage is a prophetic declaration of the Trinity and so we represent the child’s first understanding of the nature of God.

Which is why it’s no surprise that atheists are far more likely to come from homes with defective fathers (see Faith of the Fatherless).

So our desire is to relate to our children like God relates to us.  This is a huge area and will form the basis of our godly parenting blog in the future.  So in this blog entry we're just going to look very briefly at how we can communicate two aspects:  love and grace.

Love

God is love (1 Jn 4:8b) and exists as a loving daddy to us (eg Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6) but also as a loving mother (eg Isa 66:13; Mat 23:37).  We as parents need to love our children in the same way God loves us. Children who feel loved won’t look for it elsewhere, particularly in the realm of relationships.  Indeed a close relationship with parents is one of the key predictors of lack of teenage sexual experimentation.

But even though we may love our children they may not feel loved as we may not be loving them in a way they understand.  For example, my dad grew up as an unwanted second child in a family that was struggling financially - so his aim was to love his family by ensuring that we were provided for.  Whilst we did have holidays the reality was that I had a dad I didn't see much and when I did he was stressed out by his high powered job and very quick to anger. What I wanted (and needed) was some closeness and affirmation from him.  As a result I ended up looking to porn to try and fill that gap.

We’ve already mentioned the five love languages in the previous as a tool to help you speak the same "love language"  I'm going to look briefly at three aspects here with respect to our children:

•    Physical touch

God made us physical beings (embodied spirits) and has designed our bodies and emotions to thrive from touch.  We release a chemical called oxytocin (often called the "cuddle chemical") which in babies has been shown to increase growth, immunity and neuron development*.  For all ages it increases trust,bonding and feelings of closeness between the individuals involved.  It also leads to increased self-esteem and optimism. 

As such it is essential to ensure that our children receive adequate touch as they grow up.  It doesn’t have to be hugs and kisses – any kind of touch will do such as rubbing a head, touching a shoulder or snuggling next to each other when reading a book.

For boys as they grow up the wrestling/rough housing play between father and son is actually a great way of having physical affection but in a way that isn't viewed as childish.  I noticed that my eldest son used to beam with happiness after our "throw me on the sofa" games or cushion fights which made total sense once I learned about oxytocin.

As girls mature fathers may become wary of showing physical affection (especially in the current environment where every action is sexualised) - but to pull back at this critical time will devastate their fragile confidence - so continue to show affection - but in a respectful way.

•    Quality time

Quality time is a lovely idea – but you can't choose when your child will open up - so you have to be ready.  For one of my children it was always just as I tucked them into bed and was just about to rush onto my next job.  For quite some time I was caught off guard as "it was their bedtime" - and I confess I used to curtail it - then I realised what was happening and so used to mentally plan an extra 10 minutes just to listen.

Part of giving your child quality time is what I call the incarnation principle: our God didn’t stay far off but in Jesus entered our world.  Similarly we need to enter our children’s world.  What is important to them? Then it needs to be important to us.  This is so much easier said than done!  For example, it's easy when they play you the music they like to rubbish it (as it clearly won't be as good as the music you listened to when you grew up) - but doing so will cause them to withdraw from sharing with you what they're interested in and their heart's desires for fear of rejection.  Instead pray for grace and take an interest, ask questions about the artist and tell them what you like about it.

•    Words of affirmation

God the Father publicly affirmed his son (Mt 3:17; 17:5) how much more do we need to affirm our children to other people in front of them?  There's something about saying it to other people that causes children to actually believe that what we say about them is true.  For example today my eldest son was helping me chop wood with an axe but I could see that he was frustrated despite my encouragement.  So when my wife comes outside I say to her "look at Josiah's chopping - he's doing such a good job".  My wife who works as a team with me on this replies "you're right - that really is good chopping."  I turn and see my son beaming.

An aspect of this affirmation is what I call prophetical calling out.  Here we ask God who are child is going to become and then we affirm and call out who they’re going to be rather than who they are at the moment.  That is the spirit of prophecy, for example when Ezekiel prophesied over the dry bones (Ezek 37) didn’t say “you’re dry bones, you’re good for nothing” – but “you’re a mighty army” and they rose up to it.  Same with our children.  For example, one of our children was hopeless at looking for things and unless it fell out of the sky into their hand they would never find it.  We used to get so frustrated that we began saying "you never find anything!".  The Spirit woke us up to the fact that we were cursing them - saying that this is all they will ever be whereas God will finish the work he began in us (Phil 1:6) so we started prophesying over them "that's strange that you can't find it - you're really good at finding things" and soon we asked them to help the other children find items and now they are amazing.

Grace vs Law†

Are we saved by grace or by obeying the law? (eg Eph 2:8-9)

Does grace or law change our hearts to wanting to do right? (eg Rom 2:4b; 1 Jn 4:19)

Do we become more Christ-like by grace (God’s spirit working in us) or by trying harder? (eg Ezek 36:27; Phil 2:13)

So given these answers why do we expect children to become “better” by giving them law?

For example, "you must try harder to not to say that" or "well done you managed to stop talking with your mouth full!"

Rules will either produce children who think they can do it by their own effort and so become proud moralistic/religious children who have no need of a saviour or it'll produce children who realise that they can’t change and so give up trying and instead become rebellious.

The Law is powerless to bring change (Rom 8:3-4; Col 2:20-23) its purpose is to show us our need of a saviour.  Also rules also won’t capture our children's hearts so that they actually want to change - only God's love can do that.

How can we impart grace to our children in the disciplinary process?  Here is an outline of what I currently use:

• "I love you – you’re my precious son/daughter"

• "I forgive you – as God has forgiven me of far worse"

I confess I used to give forgiveness only after they had said sorry - but I realised that I was training them that forgiveness and grace depend on their behaviour - whereas forgiveness is always available - the only block is our willingness to humble ourselves and receive it. Hence I forgive and then say:

• "But you won’t be able to receive my forgiveness and love until you’re ready in your heart to say sorry – so we need to have time out where you decide whether your heart wants to do this"

• When they return from their time out we have our cuddle and restoration:

• "I also struggle with this (see Heb 4:15) and it’s too hard to change on our own but daddy God has helped me change and he can help you. Shall we ask him to help us?"

Then pray and ask for our Father's help.

• Then notice any evidence of grace and thank God for the change he’s brought in their hearts.  For example "look - you just shared your toy - you never used to be able to do that - daddy God has changed your heart so that you naturally wanted to do this!" 

We are only a shadow of the heavenly reality

Remember, however, that we are not the ultimate reality - we’re only a shadow of the real thing and so we need to point our children to the perfect One.

We saw this in the discipline process where we point out that we also need God's help to change.  If we make a mistake (for example shouting at them when we get stressed) then we need to apologise to our children and ask their forgiveness.  I also make clear how daddy God is not like daddy (so in this example I would say that daddy God is slow to anger - taking more than 400 years before punishing the Amorites Gen 15:16 - does your daddy take 400 years before he gets cross?) 

Then they see that we are living what we preach.  Failure to do so we cause our children to see as us hypocrites and lose respect.  In which case (as we saw in the previous post with my parents and lying) why would they listen to us?

*Some sources include:

"of hugs and hormones" ;

Can a Lack of Physical Contact Impair Cognitive Development?;

Maternal-Preterm Skin-to-Skin Contact

†I am indebted to Jessica Thompson and her book "Give them grace" which first opened my eyes to the law-based nature of my so-called "Christian parenting".

Firm Foundations: Modelling sexuality (Teach your children godly sexuality part 3)

Building firm foundations in your marriage: modelling sexuality

Our children learn most from watching us.

For example, when I was growing up my parents must have repeatedly told us that we should tell the truth (I confess I don't remember these conversations but I do remember getting spanked for lying - so clearly it must have been important to them...). 

However, what I do remember (apart from the spanking) was the time they told us to lie about our age so we could get cheaper tickets to the circus.  So what did I learn?  It was unfair that I got spanked for lying when they didn't and lying is ok (as long as you don't get caught).

As we see in this example, two things will happen if our actions don't line up with our life:

• Firstly our children will see that we're a hypocrite and will lose respect for what we say. 
• Secondly, our children will copy what we do and not what we say.

However anyone who's ever been a parent for more than 5 minutes will know that we will always say one thing and do another.  The temptation is to ignore it (or worse: try and justify our actions).  It's always far better to be honest about our failings and apologise to our children for letting them and ourselves down.  That way they will learn that we have integrity - that we are calling them as well as us to the same standard.  We'll touch on this more in our next post.

Bringing this conversation back to sexuality: our children's primary understanding of sexuality is going to come from how they see us interact.  So there’s no point having conversations if our actions don’t back it up – children can see straight through this. 

For example, I never saw my parents kissing, holding hands, hugging or any kind of affection to each other nor to us (and this was simply a product of the austere environment that they themselves grew up in).  The thought of them making babies from what I heard in biology lessons was simply unthinkable.  And from the dirty jokes I heard in the playground I reasoned that it was never mentioned or expressed at home because it must be something dirty.  This thinking was one of the foundations that led me to get ensnared in pornography in my teenage years.

Hence, we need wholeness (as mentioned in the previous post) so we can model this wholeness to our children.

But what does wholeness in our sexuality look like?

As we shall see throughout this course, our God's divine nature is made known through created things:

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. (Rom 1:20a)

And since out of all of creation we are singularly made in the image of God:

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
(Gen 1:27)

Our sexuality, especially within the context of marriage, is actually a prophetic declaration about the nature of our three-in-one God.

So if we want to to know what our sexuality should look like we need to take time to understand the nature of the God whom we are imaging.  An overview (as represented in our icon) is that:

three-one-love

• God is a community of three distinct persons (Father, Son and Spirit) and so a marriage is a community of 3 distinct persons (man, woman and Spirit).
• God is also one (Jn 17:21-23) and so man and woman (as physical spirit beings) are designed to become "one flesh" in marriage.
• God is love (1 Jn 4:8) - the Father (the lover) eternally loving the Son (the beloved) by the Spirit (Jn 17:24) and then the Son loves the Father back (Jn 14:31).  In the same way the man (the lover) is to created love the woman (the beloved) by the Spirit and then the woman loves the man back.

For this post we're just going to briefly look at the third aspect: husbands you need to love your wives like the Father loves the Son (Jn 17:24) and like the Son then loves His Bride (Eph 5:25).

“One of the greatest things a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”
(Howard W. Hunter)

And wives need to receive this love and then love their husbands back.

How can we do this in a way that our children see it clearly?  Gary Chapman in his excellent book speaks of 5 love languages: physical touch, quality time, words of affirmation, acts of service and gifts (or for those who like alliteration: touch, time, talk, tasks and tokens).

Let's look briefly at each of these in turn:

First we need to show physical affection in front of the children – by modelling this they will see this as a natural expression of love (and not something that they only see in a lustful context such as on MTV or late night telly).  So I make an effort (well most of the time it's not) to kiss my wife when I get in from work and to regularly cuddle her in front of the children.  And the children love it!  So much so that when I'm cuddling my wife I find one of my children popping up in the middle of our embrace!  Isn't that godly?  Don't we just delight in the love of God that we want to be part of it too?

“But I’m not a physical person!” you might cry.  Well that will change as we’re all becoming like Jesus who became flesh (Jn 1:14) and then showed love in a physical way.  For example he touched the unclean leper (Mt 8:13) , he held the children in his arms as he blessed them (Mk 10:16) and at the last supper he had the disciple John leaning in his bosom (Jn 13:23 NKJV).  If you are struggling, then ask for prayer for the Spirit to highlight the issues (which is often due lack of affection received growing up or abuse) and receive the Father's embrace and healing in those areas.

Secondly we need our children see us taking our spouse out on a date.  Even better involve them in the planning.  If money is tight then our children need to know that we have special mummy/daddy time on certain nights.  The disciples saw Jesus spending time with the Father and this led them to cry out "teach us to pray" (Lk 11:1) they saw something in the intimacy that made them want to experience this too.

Thirdly, we need to say how much we love our spouse and affirm them in front of the children.  So as I struggle with cooking and directions I regularly say to the children things like "I'm so glad I married your mummy as otherwise we'd be eating oven food every night" or when driving "thank you so much for map reading as I would be lost without you".  The disciples saw the Father affirming His Son when He declared "This is my Son, whom I love.  Listen to him!" (Mk 9:7).

Fourthly, we need our children to see us serving our spouse.  So my wife loves a tidy house so the children often hear me say "I'm just going to tidy this up as I love your mummy and your mummy likes it tidy".  I want to model to them that this is one way we show love - not just the "easy" gifts and physical affection.  In the same way Jesus demonstrated His love for the Father by being obedient to Him (Jn 14:31).

Finally, we need our children to see us buying gifts for our spouse.  So when I'm doing the weekly shop with my children they often see me buy a little something for mummy as she would love it.  In the Trinity we see that the whole world was an extravagant gift to Jesus "all things have been created through him and for him" (Col 1:16b)

With any list like this the danger is that we can see it as something we must strive to achieve - but that's living under law whereas we live under grace (Eph 2:8-9).  We love because he first loved us (1 Jn 4:19) - so we need to receive the Father's love for us, receive His Spirit of love (Rom 5:5; Gal 5:22) so that love just flows out of us .  Trying harder will just lead to resentment or discouragement.  Receiving the Father's love will lead to rivers flowing out of our heart (Jn 7:38 NKJV).  Spend time letting him love you - just rest in His presence and listen to Him sing songs of love over you - it'll be time well spent and your spouse will notice the difference.


Father, thank you that you love me.  Thank you that you're loving me right now.  I receive Your love now.  Fill up all the dark areas of my heart with your love.  Let me know how You rejoice over me with singing.  Let me know how You delight in me, that You are proud of me.  Let me know that nothing I have done can separate me from Your unfailing love.  Let me know that You have plans and purposes for me to prosper me and give me hope and a future.

Firm Foundations: Dealing with our inheritance (Teach your children godly sexuality part 2)

The temptation with any course is to rush in with methods and "3 step plans".

But there's no point trying to build something on faulty foundations.
If we do, then there will be no lasting change - it'll just be words that ring hollow with your children.

So we are going to focus first on building firm foundations...

• ...in your heart (dealing with our inheritance)
• ...in your marriage (modelling sexuality)
• ...with your children (godly parenting).

Building firm foundations in your heart (dealing with our inheritance)

It’s hard to pass on wholeness if you’re not whole yourself.

For example, my wife first discovered my fear of spiders on our wedding night.  We booked into this beautiful hotel (Bath Lodge Castle) and when I went for a shower I discovered this huge hairy spider staring up at me.  I screamed and asked my wife to remove it.  She was unimpressed, but fortunately for me she did.

I knew when we had children that I didn't want them to receive this fear from me, so I asked God to help me not to pass this onto them.  So I used to go out of my way to point out spiders to my first child and pick them up for her to touch (with much internal prayer happening!).  On one occasion the spider decided to climb up my arm very quickly and I said to my daughter, as calmly as I could manage, "oh where has the spider gone" and she replied nonchalantly "he's climbing up your back daddy!" Oh the terror and gymnastics that I performed that moment!

Similarly I don’t want to pass on any messed-up-ness in how I view sexuality onto them – I want them to be whole so they don’t fall into the errors I did.

We’ve all received some inheritance from our earthly family or our church family and it’s good to reflect on this and recognise its effects on us – whether good or bad.

To help you with this will be asking some questions for you to answer personally throughout these sessions to help you reflect and then bring them into God's grace.

I would encourage you to seek prayer from others so that God can transform you and bring beauty from ashes.  You are welcome to post thoughts and prayer requests here or on our social media streams or use the contact form on our website.

Again to ensure a safe place I ask that you respect each of our journeys and remember when responding to any comments that we are all children of the same heavenly father and are only saved by grace.  And so I will only publish such comments that adhere to these guidelines.

Questions:

Where did you first hear about sex?

What feeling do you associate with that memory?

Why?

Teach your children godly sexuality (part 1)

Today, we begin to blog the workshop that we offer to parents.

We have already talked about how the world's view of sex has been reduced to the physical act and sexuality has been reduced to orientation.  There is little to no recognition of anything beyond this, despite the obvious obsession people have with "finding someone" and then the hurt caused when it goes sour.  Repeat.

As we saw in our brief history of Christian sexuality the church currently takes one of three positions:

At one extreme we have the "free grace" movement who believe that Christ has forgiven us so we can do what we want.  This is the modern equivalent of the Corinthian view.  This "cheap grace" means that they are no different from the world and devalue the gift.

At the other end we still have those churches who see the immorality in the world and preach a "gospel" (though it is not good news at all) of sex is bad, sex is dirty, save it for the one you love.  This is the modern equivalent of the ascetic/stoic view and leads to Christians feeling condemned, guilty and marriages in trouble.

And then in between there are those churches who sit uncomfortably in the middle and say nothing.  They simply bury their heads in the sand and hope it goes away.  But it doesn't and then we, and our children, are vulnerable to a world that isn't shy about presenting its opinion forcefully and seductively.  In the end, the church just ends up conforming to the world but keeping it out of conversation of the church family.

Why do I mention this?  For two reasons.  Firstly, we need to recognise that the environment we were brought up in at home or in church shapes our beliefs and our feelings about this topic.  For example, if we were brought up in a silent environment then we will naturally find it very difficult to talk about it with our children.  Or if we were brought up in a "sex is bad" environment then we will have issues of shame that need to be addressed before we will be able to communicate the beauty of God's gift to our children.

Secondly, we need to recognise the environment our children are growing up in.  As much as we try to shelter our children, the world has a message it is pushing and if we as parents and/or the church respond with silence then they will go elsewhere to find answers.  And if we respond with the ungodly view of "sex is bad" then either they will grow up rejecting God's good gift or rejecting our opinion in favour of the world who seem to have more fun.

This course is an attempt to impart a godly view of our sexuality - a beautiful gift that reflects glory of our Three-in-One God - which is neither to be rejected, is simply too good to keep quiet about and is better than anything the world has to offer.


This is not a finished product!

I don’t have all the answers and a lovely step by step method that will work in every situation.  Life is simply not like that.  If it was then the bible would have identical stories of how God dealt with different people.

But what I can do is share what I’ve learned (often the hard way) and provide a forum to discuss issues/share ideas to help you come up with an approach which suits both your personality and your children.



To help you do this the course is presented as a workshop with (not so hypothetical) situations that will will enable you to practise applying four general principles to.


I will be sharing my personal experience and interactions with my children and in discussions others may also share personal details – I'm hoping that you will also share what has been revealed to you so we can all benefit and encourage each other onwards.

Obviously this requires a safe place so I ask that you respect each of our journeys and remember when responding to any comments that we are all children of the same heavenly father and are only saved by grace.  And so I will only publish such comments that adhere to these guidelines.



If you would prefer to ask a question privately, then please use the form on the godly sexuality website.

Much love.

Some defintions

You’ll notice that we will use the word sexuality on this blog in preference to the word sex. I think this video sums it up pretty well:

The word “sex” (late 1500s) comes from the Latin sexus: “the state of being male or female”. The origin is uncertain but is commonly taken with seco as division or 'half' of the race", which would connect it to secare “to divide or cut”. That is our race has been cut into two separate halves that can join back together.

In the 1920s D. H. Lawrence was the first to use “sex” to refer to the act of sexual intercourse (a phrase that first came into use in the 1700s). And that is what anyone would think if we to say it. The only exception would be if we said “what is the sex of...?”.

Is that all there is to being male or female? Our genitals and what we do with them? That would indeed be like saying a rainbow is just sun and rain or a mountain is just a triangular shaped rock. How far we have fallen from the beauty, mystery and majesty of who we truly are!

So we will use the word “sexuality” instead (the “action or fact of being male of female”). Whilst this word has also degenerated in its meaning (referring to “capability of sexual feelings” from 1870s and “identity” by 1980) at least it still retains some semblance of depth.

Dictionary definitions of sexuality tend to focus on the characteristics of the sexes and of physical sexual activity, and often miss the relations between them. But in In Gen 1:27 we see that:

God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 

Our human sexuality is so much more! It is grounded in the imago Dei (the image of God) and so it is transcendent – it reflects/reveals something of the very nature of God (Rom 1:20). Hence, our sexuality is theographic and as such is deeply spiritual.

What we will be looking at in this blog is what our sexuality reveals about the nature of our Three-in-God and thus how our sexuality is both good and holy.

This message will be redemptive – by seeing the true nature it will help us be who we truly are and not the distorted image we get from the world.

Secondly we will then look at how we can convey this message to our children.