Into the Fire

Relationship. Friendship. Love. Intimacy. Sex.

Although each one of those words stands for something occurring between people, they can also stand alone—each representing a specific encounter, possibly not connected to each other.

The desires for each of the above words originated with God, infused into our human makeup way back “in the beginning”. The entrance of sin perverted them all.

Let’s start with relationship. God and man. What ultimately brings a person to God is the realization of who he is and who God is. When that truthful assessment takes place, a conversion through Jesus Christ always follows. Without it: no relationship between God and man. That’s not to say God isn’t involved in a life not turned to Him. It’s to say there is no true relationship between them.

Relationship between men, women, men and women is begun at an early age. Some are better at forming one than others—based on all kinds of personality and upbringing factors. Relationship is needed to acquire well-adjusted and productive human behavior because God instituted it.

Relationship evolves to friendship outside of family relationships. Solid friendships encourage, nurture, exhort, and contribute to identification and formation of values. Real friendship teaches the give and take so necessary to participate in love. Whether or not you have many friends or only a few, friendship can last a lifetime and through eternity.

When friendship graduates to love between man and woman, the desire to proceed into intimacy is close. The temptation to forge ahead to sexual relationship can interfere with true intimacy. Intimacy is that fragile ground beyond love and before sex, but it continues into sexual encounters and should remain there. The difficulty is allowing it to be established first before the bodies become one. No love relationship between humans is perfect, and oftentimes we learn by trial and error and approach serious needs backwards due to our desires overrunning our senses and our spiritual awareness.

Sex. Many of you have never experienced sex for the sake of sex. Sex without the involvement of intimacy and love. The kind that dominates film and television and secular novels. Physical assertion, pleasure, x amount of minutes to achieve a briefly held fulfillment. Or not. And not the original intent of sex.

The participation in a one night stand which dissolves in the light of morning, the 6 month liaison filled with sexual energy until the incompatibility outside the entanglement of bodies replaces the desire to engage sexually. The 2 years of living together with the heated sex to encourage the arrangement, gradually waning with no commitment to require the desire to inspire the adjustments. The selfish lusts of one or both extending outside the commitments to seek sexual satisfaction elsewhere. It’s easily achieved but ultimately only leads to more of the same.

Sex alone has one dimensional value. For many that seems to be enough. For awhile.

Sex as God intended it encompasses all the aforementioned words. It comes last. After the relationship has grown to friendship, after the friendship has plunged into love, after the love has given way to intimacy, and finally after all the mutual commitment has been established by the marriage vows, the lovemaking sexual encounter is celebrated. When done in order, it is learned together, taught to one another, and earnestly and passionately desired as a gift to give and receive pleasure. That was how it was meant to be. Flawless enjoyment.

Then sin ruined everything.

The perfect relationship God desired with mankind was destroyed at man’s selfish, self-seeking hand. Man hasn’t changed. Neither has God.

So God offered Jesus in a no holds barred redemption package. The do or die offer you just can’t refuse. But many do. And will continue to—right up until the end of this earth.

The best we can have is relationship with God through His Son Jesus Christ. When we do, the friendship, love, intimacy, and sex experienced on this earth has the best hope of successfully participating in a no holds barred kind of life—God’s way. No longer perfection because of the influence of sin but still the best shot at attempting to have fulfillment as opposed to those in relationships without the Lord’s involvement.

God created relationship, friendship, love, intimacy, and sex to experience in its perfection. No holds barred in its beauty. The only way to even get close to the original intent is to passionately love Him and relinquish the strangle hold of a failed life to Him.

Father, we are ever pursuing a closer relationship with you, desiring all the fullness you can provide. Help me, Lord, to live a no holds barred kind of life with you. Help me to do the impossible when you’ve ordained it, to never be apart from you so that I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. I love you, Lord, and I want all you have for me. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.