Good Reasons to Wait

Bible Reading: 1 John 2:15-17

The world offers only the lust for physical pleasure, the lust for everything we see, and pride in our possessions. These are not from the Father. 1 John 2:16

YOU HAVE NO doubt figured out that waiting until marriage to have sex keeps you free of sexually transmitted diseases-and keeps you close to Jesus. But are there any other reasons to wait? Absolutely!

1. Premarital sex can make the rest of a relationship disappear. When your dates focus on the physical, you miss out on the rest of the relationship-discovering who each person is, what each personality is like, and what a really caring friendship can be.
2. Premarital sex can take away the specialness of sex in marriage. That’s espe­cially true when one partner enters marriage as a virgin and the other doesn’t.
3. Premarital sex can decrease self-esteem. At first a sexual relationship can give you a false sense of feeling accepted and special. But when you realize that’s a lie, you feel let down-a feeling that can take years to overcome.
4. Premarital sex can leave deep scars. Sex always gives some special part of yourself. And when a couple breaks up, it leaves an emotional scar tough to erase.
5. Premarital sex can lead to unwanted pregnancies and abortions. No method of birth control is 100 percent effective. So the pregnancy that you think only happens to other people could happen to you.
6. Premarital sex can lead to comparisons in marriage. Sex is supposed to get better and better as a marriage matures. But if one partner enters marriage with “ex­perience,” he or she usually has flashbacks. It’s almost impossible not to draw com­parisons to previous experiences-and that can lead to serious difficulties.
7. Premarital sex can tear down trust. Marriage partners who know their spouse didn’t save sex for marriage often wonder whether their partner is being faithful.
8. Premarital sex can lead to sexual addiction. Sexual addiction might sound like a joke-but it produces pain and personal destruction.
9. Premarital sex can destroy freedom. The big lie is that freedom means doing what you want, when you want, with whomever you want. In reality, that’s lawless­ness, not freedom. True freedom is having the capacity to do right, which means sav­ing sex for yourself and your spouse until marriage.

It’s worth it to wait, don’t you think?

REFLECT: Why is it worth keeping sex until marriage?

PRAY: Thank God for his great gift of sex and invite him to keep these reasons to wait fresh in your mind.