Come on Down, Guy #1!

Q: How many years have you been a Christian?

A: 2 years

 

Q: Are you a Virgin?

A: No

 

Q: Define purity or what it means to you.

A: Purity is staying clear from all around sin.

 

Q: How important is purity in the opposite sex?

A: Important, a young lady should stand firm against the pressure.  

 

Q: Is purity a priority in your life?

A: I’m working towards it

 

Q: How does our society view purity?

A: Poor.

 

Q: Why do you think God has called us to be pure?

A: Its not much to ask from people compared to what he went through, and we should follow his example

BOYS!!! BOYS!!!BOYS!!!

What do guys think about Purity? Have you ever wondered that, girls? Well we have the answer!!!! We have interviewed different boys in our youth group about what they’re perspectives on purity are, and everyday this week we will be posting a different guys answers. All the guys we are interviewing are Christian, between the ages of 14-25, and are from different walks of life. So they are a pretty good representation of our generation. I hope you find this weeks posts interesting and please give us some feedback.

"The Situation"-Krystal Meyers

This is song by Krystal Meyers called “The Situation”. I think the lyrics are pretty powerful. The line “but she knows she wants to feel beautiful” really embody how a lot of girls measure their worth by how a guy is interested in them. Then, in the second verse, the line ” suck it up and be a man” is right on, the sense that a lot of guys feel that sex defines their masculinity. So I hope you like this song as much as i do and I encourage you to buy the whole album ” Dying for a Heart”.

“She’s finding love in the back of a car

When is it too late, have they gone too far?
She’s having trouble drawing the line
But she knows she wants to feel beautiful.
She struggles finding self-respect
She’ll wake up feeling regret
Her purity’s been compromised
But she knows she wants to feel beautiful.

A promise made to treasure, you don’t have to give it away
Falling for the pressure, you can’t mend a vow when it breaks
Explain your hesitation, Jesus can be your escape
Don’t taint the situation, this love was made to wait!

He’s living life out on the edge
Gotta make a move, move it on to the bed
Temptation whispers in his head
Believe the lie, Suck it up and be a Man
He’ll trade her heart for a trophy, put it on a shelf so his friends can see
He has what it takes to get what he wants
Tonights the night
Suck it up and be a Man

A promise made to treasure, you don’t have to give it away
Falling for the pressure, you can’t mend a vow when it breaks
Explain your hesitation, Jesus can be your escape
Don’t taint the situation, this love was made to wait!

Whats wrong ?
I can see the fear behind your eyes
Your scared you might walk away unsatisfied
God’s love is the only one to fill the void
He’s reaching out
Just turn around and hold on

A promise made to treasure, you don’t have to give it away
Falling for the pressure, you can’t mend a vow when it breaks
Explain your hesitation, Jesus can be your escape
Don’t taint the situation, this love was made to wait!”

I Want to be Anorexic, Half-Naked, and Fake!

…….Not really, but with those three words, I just described all the women in Hollywood. These are also the women that our society calls “role models”. I am disgusted when I think of the fact that many younger girls look to these women as examples, but then I got to thinking. How many times do we look at the fashion magazine and seen how beautiful these women can appear to be and think, “maybe I should do my hair like that”, or “wow, i should buy pants like that” . Even though we KNOW these women are lost and pretty conceited, we begin to fashion ourselves after them. Now, this isn’t sin, but what I want to know is why aren’t their enough godly women, dressing and acting like godly women, to show us something different! What we need is a strong and secure example of what a women should be, to contradict everything that world tries to show us. In our church, we do have strong godly women, but we need more. So I write this as a challenge to the young ladies. We need to be that example for the next generation, let us be the change we want to see in the world.
” I desire that the men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting; in like manner also, that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, but which is proper for women professing godliness, with good works. “-1 Timothy 2:8-10

I Have a Confession…..

Many teenage girls are sick with promiscuity and immodesty. This is usually because of the lack of a father or the lack of a father who showed them the love and support they needed. So because they lack that love, they search to fill the void with the love of another man, which turns into the wrong man or many men. But what they find is not love, but lust and infatuation which quickly boils down to hurt and loss. So when we talk about purity to girls this is usually a topic we hit on. But I’m here to say that I am one of these fatherless girls!!!!! Its true, my real father chose not to be in my life, and even though a man stepped in to that position, i never felt that love from him. As a result, something in me wants to feel affection from a guy even though my mind knows its a cheap imitation of love. Its my flesh. For some reason I feel if i get affection from a guy, its going to fill that void that I have. So why am I not out there being promiscuous? Because I realized who God is and how perfect His love is. I had to make a conscious decision to go against every feeling I had. It’s been tough and its something I still deal with, but i know that if I deny myself, God has so much more in store. He promises to be a Father to the fatherless.
So I wanted to write this as encouragement to anyone who can relate. There is a God who loves us and He is the only answer to our problems.

Cherish your Purity……and snow!

Its a wonderful thing! I know many people don’t think it is, but I love it . Today after I made a really cute snowman, I was just laying in a pile snow and I started thinking about a bunch of stuff and a great analogy came into my head. Purity is like snow. Both are supposed to be cherished because they are 2 of the most beautiful gifts from God. If you don’t think snow is beautiful, then look outside at any untouched patch of snow you will notice the little sparkles in it when the sun shines on it and you will realize how pretty it really is. Many of us take these two things for granted and we see them as burdens or curses and we don’t cherish them. Our purity is a gift from God. We are lucky that God is giving us another chance, because he could easily send us all to hell, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t, because he loves us so much and he doesn’t want us to suffer even though we definitely deserve it. Also I just want to let everyone know that purity isn’t just a calling for unmarried people, its for everyone. Purity isn’t just staying away from sexual activities before marriage, its many things. Its being clean of sin, so this means making yourself like God, and staying away from swearing and being like the world. Another similarity between snow and purity is that if you compare an untouched patch of snow and a patch of snow thats been walked through , which one looks better? Personally I think the untouched snow does or you could say the pure snow. That is my point, us humans mess up God’s gifts. We go through his wonderful snowy creation and make it all dirty. We do the same thing with purity, we make it sound bad, hard and definitely not fun. Also, we have done this with sex! Sex was another gift from God it was originally the way to get beautiful new life and it was a wonderful thing to be shared only inside a marriage. Then humans perverted another one of God’s great privileges into something dirty and we misused it. Now children are even doing it! because tv makes it look fun and exciting. Now everyone is joking about it and making is sound like its a human right to have sex with who you want, whenever you want. Thinking about this honestly makes me sad, because I realize that I have taken all of these things for granted and looked at them in ways that God did not intend for us to look at them. So I know I’m going to think about these things and ask God to forgive me. I hope no one thinks I’m trying to tell them how bad they are, because thats not what I’m doing. I just want us to cherish beautiful gifts that God has given us before it’s too late and before we mess our lives up anymore.

Please Don’t Go

Don’t go where I can’t follow,
Please don’t leave me here alone.
All I want is to hear you again
To feel your touch
And to see you for the first time.
I need you here to guide me through my darkness.
To help me through my confusion.

I need you
The reasons are clear as black is white.
Will you still accept my ruined soul?

Don’t go were I can’t follow.
I don’t want to be lonely anymore.
My eyes are blind,
To what you have in store.
I know I try to walk away from you
Which hammers your limbs once again.
Unfortunately nothing will take away the pain I’ve caused.

Don’t go were I can’t follow.
Please don’t leave me behind.
I’m here begging for your forgiveness
Even though I don’t deserve it.

So after I wrote this I read it over to see if it has anything to do with purity and I figured out it does. The first thing I realized is that many people when reading this would automatically think I was talking about a guy. Which this poem is not about a guy, it is about God. From this I noticed that many people in this generation, mainly girls turn everything into something about a guy. But this is the opposite of what God wants us to do. God doesn’t want us to be like this, he wants our number one priority to be him. To me learning this is a big key to staying pure, because we have to get our minds off the world’s perspective of love and keep our minds on God’s path.

Dee Koester

Tonight I went to the City Wide Prayer Meeting. As I was sitting there I saw Dee, a lady in our church. This past week her husband died, but we know that he is in Heaven, right now. I don’t know exactly how long they were married, but I know it was longer than I have been alive and that they loved each other very much. So Here is a woman that found the man she planned to spend the rest of her life with ( something I pray for), but now she has to be without him. As I was sitting there thinking about this, I was watching her. She was stretching her hand out praying for people, but it was the look in her eyes that got my attention. In her eyes you could see the sincere concern and compassion she had for people. So while I’m sitting here feeling horrible for Dee, she is overwhelmed with love and joy for others. I was both inspired and taken back by Dee, because I saw just how selfless her love for Don and God are. She rejoices knowing that her husband is in a far better place, and though she might be feeling loss she still reaches out to others. I think too many times, we think of love in a marriage as something we need to have and receive to be complete. This is selfishly seeking love, but, proven by Don and Dee, the love that lasts is selfless. I want to leave you with this thought……….Is it possible to seek for what is selfless, selfishly, and find it??

Her Name:PURITY

Her name and reputation are slandered and dragged through the gutter by those who have left her

She wanders the street hoping someone will pursue her.

Bruised and Battered,
She calls out to those she loves,
Her heart in pieces, caused by all the false lovers in her past.

The children that used to cling to her have left her behind in their adolescence.

Misinterpreted,
Misplaced,
Misunderstood

Stripped of her clothing,
She is forsaken.

Her Name: Purity
Her Purpose:TO SEPARATE US FOR THE WILL OF GOD

Ladies! You are Fearfuly and Wonderfuly Made!

Identity Crisis

via Pastor Steven Furtick by sf on 9/13/07

I heard somebody on TV the other day saying that Britney Spears has gotten too fat.
And my first reaction was: “I wish I could cover the ears of every 13 year old girl in America right now.”
I seriously wanted to throw up.

As a young pastor who wants to see the next generation rise above surface level spirituality, nothing makes me sadder than to imagine what it must be like for all the young ladies who are being force fed the lies of the modern media.

Should we take care of our bodies? No doubt.
Is it okay to care about fashion and appearance? Go for it.
(I personally love the way my wife works hard to dress well and look good for her man. And I try to do the same for her. That means I wear what she tells me to wear. It’s that simple.)

But I’m deeply concerned that this generation of gals is beholding the wrong standards.
So I’d like to offer a few pastoral observations to my wonderful female readership about the impending American female identity crisis.

1. Nicole Richie is too skinny. Make sure you’re drawing your inspiration from reasonable and truly beautiful role models. You don’t get a “pretty point” for every rib that I can count. In fact, I shouldn’t be seeing your stomach at all. Put some clothes on.
2. The girls on My Super Sweet 16 are not normal. They are bratty and disgusting. You should not act like them. If you do act like them, your parents should beat you. Not put you on restriction. Beat you. Yeah, I said it.
3. If you will cultivate Christ like character and pursue God with your whole heart, you’ll attract guys with the right stuff. Your identity has got to run deeper than your make up and new shoes. Make guys respect you for what’s within you.

I am passionate about this. I want to exalt true and lasting beauty that doesn’t fade for the young ladies who sit under my teaching every week. I want them to know who they are and who they belong to. I want them to hold themselves in high regard as women who are uniquely crafted and completely loved by God. And I want them to practice selective hearing, so that the next time some talking head tells them Britney is too fat, and it makes them feel inadequate, they’ll turn off their TVs and fill their minds with the thoughts of God instead.