Sleeping in the Bed we have made

This may come across as a little - well, odd. But I am pro-sex. That is I like sex, and believe it is perhaps the most beautiful thing a man and a woman can be a part of. But, it is only beautiful when it is engaged in the way that God has intended it to be. When we pursue Godly sex within our marriage we are honoring the marriage bed that He has given to us. Today, speaking only for America since that is the scope of my experience, sexual exploits are openly encouraged. Advertising, sit-coms, movies, all seem to say that meeting someone and jumping straight into bed is fine, good, and encouraged. As a Christian I know that this is wrong. God has intended sex to be within the context of marriage alone. And yet the churches opposition to it over the past - I don't even know - has led my society to where it is today IMO. Once the church started to basically say that sex was something to - essentially - be tolerated, only done to procreate - the enemy jumped on it. Just read "Song of Solomon" (or sometimes refered to as "Song of Songs") and see what God has for married sex. But instead of promoting sex as something good, and something to be encouraged, it has been diminshed and supressed. As a result the enemy has taken a truth, and twisted into something that it is not intended to be. The enemy is masterful at doing that. Taking a truth of God, and putting a seed of doubt, or a question about it, and then twists it out of what it is supposed to be. If you are married and are reading this rejoice in this gift of God, and ask for God to open the heart and mind of not only your spouse, but of yourself. We each have a view of this like we see Christ - as if in a mirror, and that dimly. but the great thing is that we can get to practice and slowly be conformed into what God has for each of us. If you are not married, I want to encourage you to save sex for marriage. It is not that I want to try and deprive you of something exquisite - quite the opposite. I want to encourage you to seek to save such an experience for the one to whom God will bring to you. When we do things outside of what God has designed, it is then that we really get to know the "evil" side of the fruit from the tree in the garden. The enemy will tell you that it is cruel to withhold such a beautiful thing, but in reality it is the enemy of our souls that wants to turn something beautiful into something ugly (and we the church has allowed this in so many ways), and so that when the time does come it's beauty has been tarnished. Not that sex will never be what God intended, but the sin will increase the burden and make it harder to achieve all that God has intended in the contect of our marriage beds. --- And I tell you this from personal experience to my shame. I may not have done all that God would have me do, but by His grace I am being conformed into the image of Christ. I am shedding the burdens of my sins by laying them at His cross. And he is healing my heart and mind (as well as my beloved's) and we are growing towards that image put forth in His Word. Healing is always possible. :) Verse for today: Song of Songs 1:2-4 & 2:2 SHE: Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine; your anointing oils are fragrant; your name is oil poured out; therefore virgins love you. Draw me after you; let us run. The king has brought me into his chambers. HE: As a lily among brambles,so is my love among the young women.