Welcome back to the course, Marriage and the Gospel. We hope you’re enjoying the journey with us as we see how the gospel directly affects your heart and therefore your life and your marriage. In this lesson, we will see how our one flesh union is fulfilled in our sexual intimacy together as husband and wife. However, a lack of gospel application in your lives will leave your marriage weak, unsatisfied, and longing to fulfill the ‘desires of the flesh’ which will be harmful to your marriage rather than bringing healing to it.
Erick wrote; "This was exactly how our marriage started the day after tying the knot and promising with vows to be united until ‘death do us part’. While walking together on the beach on our honeymoon my wife discovered my sexual impurity as my eyes were not fixed on my bride but on the desires of my flesh. Sexual immorality began an immediate decay of our marriage but the Lord was so gracious to us at the cross where He restored and renewed ALL the years the locust had eaten (Joel 2:25)."
Please understand that your flesh and its desires will seek to pull the marriage apart, deteriorate and destroy it. But through the Spirit by the power of the gospel, your marriage will be united in love, forgiveness, healing, freedom, joy and peace. Remember, your sin was nailed to the cross and united with Christ in His death (Galatians 2:20) and you were raised to new life through his resurrection power (Romans 6:5). So in Christ, your marriage has the cross as the anchor which keeps you from drifting apart, being tossed by the winds and waves of worldly thinking and held captive to the god of this world.
Why are we sharing all of this with you? Because many of us can operate in the flesh as believers and use what God created as beautiful and fulfilling into a battleground. Sex is not the battleground for war, nor leverage to be used against your spouse, a consequence, a payback or something to use to ‘get even.' But to be enjoyed mutually and given freely because we each have the same obligation, to keep our spouses satisfied sexually. So make it fun and mutually enjoyable and satisfying.
Question1. Are you using sexual intimacy for war? Please share.
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“Now regarding the questions you asked in your letter. Yes, it is good to abstain from sexual relations. 2 But because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband.” 1 Corinthians 7:1-2 NLT
If you are single and burning with desire you should seek a spouse to fulfill your sexual burning desires rather than giving in to the flesh through impurity (1 Corinthians 7:36). Sex was beautifully designed by God for the pleasure of both husband and his wife so it goes without mention that both need to be present.
Gratifying the flesh through (adutery, pornography, magazines, movies, the internet, etc.) or other forms of sexual impurity are counterfeit fulfillment of the sexual relationship between husband and wife. And because you are new in Christ there is no true fulfillment in it. It doesn’t appeal to your new heart nor fit with who you are in Jesus.