Christian Singles: Celibate or Celebrate?

One’s attitude to God has enormous sexual implications. The book of Romans opens with the revelation that a whole range of sexual distress and addiction and perversion can be traced back to having a wrong view of God. A perverted view of the Giver (God) leads to a perverted view of the gift (sex).

Romans 1:21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him . . . (24) Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity . . .

And again:

(25) They exchanged the truth of God for a lie . . . (26) Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.

Suppose someone displayed enormous generosity and love by giving you a hundred million dollars. You could use that gift to achieve enormous good in this world and by so doing bring great honor and blessing to yourself. Or you could use it to selfishly indulge your weaknesses and end up destroying yourself. If you foolishly misused the gift that could have brought you great honor, should you blame the giver or yourself? Or if someone beat you up in order to rob you of the gift, is the giver to blame, or the thug who mugged you?

For someone to entrust a priceless gift to you is an honor. It means the giver believes in your ability to wisely handle it. God’s gift of sex fits this category exactly. Imagine an elderly person giving you his entire life’s savings, asking you to look after his significant nest egg of money until he needs it. You could complain that this is a useless gift because there is no way you can legitimately use the money for your own indulgence. It’s just a frustration, being so close to riches you cannot use. But that person has honored you not by giving you money (since he expects you not to use it) but by giving you enormous trust. If nothing else, we have great reason to rejoice in the great honor of being entrusted with the gift of sex. It is almost like the President of the United States bestowing on you the authority to use the nation’s nuclear arsenal. You may never have a legitimate opportunity to use America’s nuclear capability, and enormous harm would result if you misused it, but by entrusting you with this huge responsibility, you have been greatly honored. Likewise, regardless of whether you ever get to use it, by making you a sexual being, God has honored you with a responsibility that not even angels are granted.

Yet Another Reason for Celebration

Years ago I hardly felt part of the human race. I had virtually never even dated. My virginity meant I had been denied what seemed to be a number of fundamental human experiences. Never having experienced the many trials and joys of marriage and parenthood made me feel abnormal and alienated from the bulk of humanity. There are so many high points and crises in the average person’s life that I had never known. I could have felt no greater shame had I, as a mature adult, had to walk through life in the body of a six year old.

Perhaps you are lucky enough to have no idea of what it’s like not to feel a full member of the human race. It adds a whole new dimension of isolation to one’s loneliness. But how much worse things would be and how much more of a freak I’d feel if I had no sexual feelings.

The wonderful thing is that I no longer feel like an alien who does not belong on this planet. A big factor was that when I was in my thirties the Lord graciously enabled me to experience romantic love and conflict and emotional closeness through giving me a girlfriend for several years. This rose garden had its share of thorns and being a Christian and unmarried meant that I remained a virgin, but much healing flowed and much insight into the dynamics of close, opposite-sex relationships, which has enabled me to minister to couples experiencing marital difficulties. Had I been a eunuch I don’t suppose this would have been possible.

The other healing factor was the realization that being sexually normal meant that no matter what physical experiences I lack, churning within me are the same feelings and needs as most of the rest of humanity. Were I not a sexual being I might be spared much frustration, but my God-given sexuality empowers me to feel what most people feel. This ability to identify with people’s longings and frustrations and to imagine their joys – to truly weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice (Romans 12:15) – might come with a high price tag but it gives me the edge even on angels in ministering to people.

People helped by my writings and counseling on marital issues are dumbfounded to hear of my sexual inexperience. A Marriage Counselor with a Master of Arts degree e-mailed, commending my webpages and asking me – a virgin with no counseling qualifications – for hard copies of everything I have written about marital relations. All glory goes to God. The point, however, is that one of the means the Almighty used to bring about this miracle was by creating me a sexual being.

The Son of God suffered enormously to identify with humanity. I will therefore exult in any suffering – be it so slight in comparison with that of our Savior – that helps me identify a little more with the people who mean so very much to our Lord. Although it might often feel like an infuriating source of frustration, I wouldn’t trade for anything the inner turmoil that has enabled me to connect with, and better identify with, the multitudes who battle sexual temptation and frustration and who yearn for things that seem beyond their grasp. One day the indelible memory of those feelings might suffice but until the Lord confirms that time has arrived I willingly embrace the pain. If some people foolishly prefer a pain-free life or earth’s fizzle of pleasure – the selfishness that people have the audacity to call love – it is only because they have no conception of the everlasting joy and honor of Christlike love.

Ecstasy

There is a still higher, more exciting reason for us celebrating celibacy. I’ve saved the best until last because, sadly, many readers will find this not just beyond their experience but beyond their comprehension. Ideally we should pray along the following lines for weeks, but please at least join me once in praying this prayer.

Infinite, all-knowing Lord,
In desperation, I seek you as the only one able to explode my human limitations and stun me with supernatural insight into spiritual reality. I look to you to empower my efforts to put aside human thinking. Cause my eyes to pierce the fog of doubt and carnality and by divine revelation glimpse a life-giving truth that is beyond the realm of my normal understanding.

Our sexuality gives us singles a unique opportunity to return the love of the One who first loved us, and to suffer minutely for the One who suffered horrifically for us.

No matter how low opinion we have of ourselves, it is a fact that if we muddied our moral standards every one of us could find someone who would have sex with us, even if we had to pay money for it. Rather than defile what Christ has purified, we endure sexual frustration. Our love for Christ moves us to choose to suffer sexual deprivation rather than sexual depravity. That choice is our love gift to him. Of course, we could give our mighty Lord nothing that he has not first given us. We can sacrifice for him our sexual pleasure only because he first gave us our sexuality. And we want to sacrifice a little of what he has given us only because our crucified Savior has already sacrificed everything for us.

One person who has grasped this opportunity is Jill. In obedience to her Lord, she moved out of an immoral relationship. She has now been single – and celibate – for over ten years. She comments:

One thing that has frequently comforted me in this struggle is the realization that it is God who will ‘arrange’ my marriage if it is to happen and that, until he does, he has chosen me to dwell in his house as his precious daughter; one who is a special joy and jewel to him that he will not give away to one who is unworthy and unappreciative of his jewel.

Similarly, he has another jewel in his household who he is uniquely fitting me for.

I would rather be a daughter in the house of the Lord than anywhere else, when I consider the wonderful access I have to him and the special place I have in his heart because I have not willfully followed my own pursuits but his. I don’t need to be anyone’s wife to know the intimacy and affection that I have in him.

The incense burned in the Holy of Holies was sacred. The recipe was allowed for no other purpose. It was consecrated to God and God alone. He makes me feel like that. He wants me for himself as a sweet smelling incense and a special joy that he alone can savor.

I want to be cherished and especially loved. Who can do that as perfectly as God? He will never fail me, betray me, damage me, slander me, abuse me, reject me, abandon me, or anything else that I have experienced at the hand of mankind. No matter how much I hurt him, he’ll always want me, always believe in me, always offer me the strength to change. He won’t imprison me so that I could never leave. Should I break his heart by leaving, he will always wait with outstretched arms, longing for me to return.

There’s a principle that God taught his people throughout the Old Testament: the first fruits belong to God. In relatively recent times science and technology have developed a diverse variety of ways by which we can enjoy fresh fruit for a much longer period than the short season that trees were in fruit in Old Testament times. Put yourself in their sandals. After being deprived of fresh fruit for nearly an entire year, mouthwatering fruit is at last on the tree. Most of it is too green to dare put it to your mouth but just a few have ripened to perfection. In a few weeks so much will ripen that you will almost be sick of eating it. It will be easy to give that away. But that’s not what God asks. He wants – and deserves – the first fruit; that which costs us the most to give.

King David desperately needed to offer a sacrifice. For this he needed oxen and a plot of land – a threshing-floor – on which to sacrifice them. Araunah gave both to David for free. 2 Samuel 24:24 takes up the story:

But the king replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing-floor and the oxen and paid fifty shekels of silver for them.

But we are not under law. Let’s see what happens when love is unleashed:

Acts 5:40  . . . They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. (41) The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. (42) Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.

Before we can experience a revival like the apostles had, we need a revelation of love like they had.

Wrote someone who understood:

Sacrifice is the ecstasy
of giving the best we have
to the one we love the most.

If only we could plumb the depths of this mind-blowing spiritual mystery. It’s the mystical motivation, that powered our Lord to the cross and it’s what will empower us to take up our cross and follow him through pain and shame all the way to endless glory.

If, unlike the apostles, we have not yet been granted the honor of suffering the public humiliation and agony of having our naked backs shredded for our Savior, we can at least console ourselves with the privilege of voluntarily suffering a little sexual deprivation for the One who deserves so much more than we could ever hope to offer.

Christ is worthy of honor for many reasons, but above all, isn’t it what Christ suffered for your sake that makes him so precious to you? And won’t you feel that way for all eternity? Christ loved us and longed to make us worthy of honor when we were our ugliest. Nevertheless, as Christ received special honor in our eyes through what he suffered for us, so we will gain special honor in his eyes through what we suffer for him. Just as his suffering consummated his love for us, so our suffering for him is the exquisite consummation of our love for him.

As explained in the webpage mentioned below, to deny ourselves sexually for the sake of saving ourselves for ‘someone special’ is an inferior motivation unless it is done for the Special Person – the Lord Jesus Christ.

Here’s a Scripture bursting with so many truths it’s amazing so much could be crammed into so few words. One of the truths packed into the first two verses is that we enjoy a far deeper (ie spiritual) union with the King of kings than could ever exist between two humans:

1 Corinthians 6:16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” (17) But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit. (18) Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. (19) Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; (20) you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

Save yourself for the one who saved you; give yourself to the One who gave himself for you. Delight yourself in the Lord, the Giver of every good and perfect gift, and rejoice in the riches that God has graciously allowed you to offer him.