Chastity
Open Your Bible
Psalm 139:13-16, Proverbs 5:15-19, Matthew 5:27-30, Romans 12:1-2, 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, 1 Corinthians 7:1-9, 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
BY Lore Ferguson Wilbert
The ring was a symbol and a lie. “A symbol of your purity,” my parents said as they gave it to me, and a lie because I knew what my fumbling hands and the hands of another had already enacted. As long as I wore that ring I felt like a fraud, telling a story that wasn’t true about my heart, my body, and my intentions.
I had made no promise to wait for sex until marriage. The promise, like the ring, was hoisted on me by well meaning but misguided parents, leaders, and teachers. I thought waiting looked like white-knuckled and gritting determination. And by my late teens or early twenties, waiting for marriage was equated with “[burning] with desire” (1Corinthians 7:9). I did not understand that purity is a gift from God to me—not a gift for me to give to Him. And I did not understand that chastity was a spiritual discipline, not a rote one born of shame and demand and the seeds of legalism.
Chastity is only truly practiced by one whose spirit is alive with Christ, whose restraint is empowered by the Holy Spirit. It is not and cannot be produced in someone who is merely there for the show. It is not proven by signing cards promising to wait for sex until marriage, nor by wearing a purity ring or a bride wearing white on her wedding day.
Chastity is practiced by a person who makes a habit of presenting their body again and again and again, “as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God” (Romans 12:1), and as an act of worship to the God who made their body, loves their body, and cares deeply about their body. It is practiced both inside marriage and outside it, both in the avoidance of sex and in the participation of it within marriage. It is not something one loses when they enter into marriage, but it is something one carries with them. Chastity is as necessary for life and godliness as goodness, faithfulness, kindness, and joy.
I wear a different ring these days, a small rose gold one with a beryl stone within it. It communicates a promise of fidelity, service, and love to my husband. But it also communicates to me that I am not released from a practice of chastity simply because I wear this wedding ring and sex is permissable. I still practice the discipline of chastity, of asking the Spirit to help counter sexual thoughts that have no place in our marriage, of making a practice of saying “Yes,” in marriage instead of “No” (1Corinthians 7:2–7), of recognizing and submitting to what is beneficial instead of being mastered by desires and thoughts (1Corinthians 6:12–20), and of bearing the fruit of the Spirit in all its forms in our marriage.
Before committing to wait for true love, one must know they are truly loved by God. We need to know that His Spirit is there to help us in our weaknesses and to empower us to walk in all that He has for us.
69 thoughts on "Chastity"
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Love this, a new way to look at chastity for me.
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Wow, this was a brilliant way to consider chastity, it’s often been presented as a ticking time bomb and I am grateful for the message that once you acknowledge and accept God’s love for you and the word that he is doing in you then you can commit to the wait and I feel like in really learning and letting it sink in for me recently is just so powerful
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“Before committing to wait for true love, one must know they are truly loved by God.” Chastity as a spiritual discipline is different from chastity demanded by legalism. The Hoy Spirit helps us in our weakness just like with other spiritual disciplines. I really appreciated the messages in this devotional and wish I had heard them as a teen and young adult.
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Heather – my husband is on the board of an incredible ministry called Proven Men. They are a great resource for dealing with sexual addiction.
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THIS IS SO GOOD! Chastity is a discipline, not something rooted in shame!! I think my life would look very different if I learned about chastity in this way. I made a lot of mistakes with my body in high school and college. I’ve laid all that sin before the Lord and am walking in freedom in my marriage now, but I do believe that I would have made different choices if I knew chastity was a gift from God. I see that now, because married sex is SO MUCH BETTER than any sexual relations I had prior to marriage! Waiting is so worth it!
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@Mercy, God has brought me to the depths and beyond… and He has WON the victory!!! I am healed and set FREE!!!! My identity and security is in HIM alone. So don’t let your heart be broken…REJOICE with me and give all GLORY and HONOR to God!!! He is SO faithful and KIND!!!! He met me in my brokenness and gave me a NEW life!!!! I am so incredibly grateful!!!! ❤️❤️❤️
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@ Erb, you went through so much. My heart breaks reading your story. I will be praying for you for complete healing.
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@Taylor,
Thank you for your courage to be vulnerable, I’m actually very much the same as you, perhaps even worse. Struggled since my teens and now in my early mid twenties I still stumble and follow my desires. I’ve grown tired of asking God for help when I knew those moments of pleading with God were only temporary and I knew deep down that I wasn’t ready to stop. Eventually I felt my heart growing calloused and numb to this sin. However, by some truly ironic grace of God, my calloused heart also quieted the guilt and shame and allowed me to see my need for God. I changed my prayers of “help me to overcome myself”, to “help me to want you more than anything”. I cracked open my physical bible I haven’t touched in a very long time and saw how throughout all of repeated cycles of sin and wickedness, he remained faithful. I realized I was so busy focusing on my sin that I stopped seeking God just to be with him. I know my struggles, but in light of him, my sin has lost it’s meaning to me. It doesn’t define me, it doesn’t change me, it only reveals how much he still loves me. I’ll be praying that God stirs you heart to seek him, and walk with him day by day. It’s truly in the day to day, moment to moment presentness with God that I can see how good he is.
In the moments of despair, it might be difficult so see his goodness but I hope you’ll see that in the daily renewal and receiving of God’s grace you’ll look back and see how much of his love and grace you’ve received and continue to receive. He hears you Taylor, I know because he’s heard me.
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