Sex and Money: Pleasures That Leave You Empty and Grace That Satisfies by Paul David Tripp

Author:Paul David Tripp
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Christianity, Theology, Marriage, Christian Living, Personal Growth, Religion & Spirituality, Ethics, Christian Books & Bibles
ISBN: 1433536498
Publisher: Crossway Books
Published: 2013-03-15T20:06:29+00:00

WHAT DOES OBEDIENCE LOOK LIKE?

Obedience is more than a set of behaviors; obedience is an attitude of the heart. I will pirate the definition my brother, Tedd, has given for obedience: Obedience is the willing submission of my heart to God that causes me to do what God has commanded without challenge, excuse, or delay. May I say at the get-go that an obedient heart will protect and purify your sex life. At the core of sexual purity lives a willing recognition of and submission to the authority of God.

Let’s unpack Tedd’s definition. The heart of obedience is not doing the right stuff. Rather, the heart of obedience is the heart, and what must live in the heart of the obedient person is a willing submission to God’s authority. Obedience that is not willingly submissive is not obedience. If you must force, cajole, threaten, or guilt others into obedience, you have to do that precisely because they are not obedient. They are lacking the willingness that is at the center of every obedient life. Sexually pure people are sexually pure because they have a willing heart, and because they have a willing heart they are ready to say no to powerful desires, raging emotions, and seductive temptations, turning and doing what God has called them to do. The person who fights what is right, who constantly questions it, who looks for ways around it, and who occasionally even mocks it will not be sexually pure for very long because he does not carry around with him an obedient heart. He will not be able to stand against the daily temptations he will face in this world gone sexually insane, and he will not say no to his quickly wandering desires.

This willingness of heart causes me to have a “what-has-God-commanded?” way of looking at my life. I don’t mean I live a legalistic, rules-bound existence or that I live tentatively and fearfully. What I am saying is that I have a boundaries way of thinking about life. If God is in charge, and if he has decided what is morally right and wrong, and if he has clearly communicated that to me, then there are moral boundaries of heart and behavior inside of which I am called to live. Inside of those boundaries is a life of beautiful freedom and happiness. Outside of those boundaries are danger, destruction, and death.

Think of the word picture of boundaries. Pretend that there is a yard you are living in that contains every good, true, and beautiful thing a human being could ever want, and around the yard is a twenty-foot-high chain-link fence. And consider further that outside, on the other side of the fence, is a world of real danger, things that will cause your death. If you accepted that what is inside the yard is really very good, things that give you life, and if you accepted that what is outside the fence is really very bad, things that lead to death, wouldn’t

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