Satan’s Strategy for Your Life #34: Sex Outside the Lines

“Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” 

—1 Corinthians 7:5

Sex. God created both men and women to come together sexually. And it’s a good thing—provided that it is within the holy covenant of marriage. Anything else is wrong and wicked—a sin against one’s own body. If you are a Christian then it’s worse because your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit of God, set apart to be holy, and to defile the Temple in which the Spirit of God dwells is to commit a flagrant or high-handed sin in the sight of God and invite God’s direct judgment.

We are created as sexual creatures with the desire to join with one of the opposite sex in holy matrimony, where the sexual relationship is nurtured, enjoyed, and when God allows—to bring forth children. In today’s passage, the apostle Paul writes about the sexual responsibilities that husbands and wives have to one another. A man and a woman both have sexual needs and they are to come together sexually often. The term “often” is dependent upon the couple and there needs to be a great deal of communication between the husband and wife defining “often”. There must be give and take, and grace given because of various life stages, cycles, and hormones that can rise and fall affecting the libido. Not everyone has the sexual impulses of their youth, or dynamic sex drives during times of great stress, lack of sleep, or hormonal changes. Nevertheless, while grace must be given, there is still the responsibility that we have to one another as couples to keep ourselves sexually for the other. Satan knows that we are sexual beings with hormonal impulses and has found a very subtle, yet nevertheless affective tactic to get at Christians through the bedroom in their lack of self-control.

If Satan can get into your sex life, then he can destroy you, as well as the lives of countless others around you. Which is why Paul wrote, “Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer.” Paul understood there would be times where we do deprive one another, but not for selfish or hurtful reasons, rather that we might be more devoted and focused on God. Nevertheless, our spiritual practices do not always negate our physical desires and the enemy looks for those who have not fostered marital intimacy and seeks to wedge his way into a marriage for the purpose of physical and spiritual sabotage. Paul wrote to married couples so that they may not fall to Satan’s schemes, “but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”

As married couples we must be sure to build boundaries around our marriages, fostering intimacy, good communication, and friendship, making effort to keep the marriage bed pure so that Christ may be glorified by the physical union He established. Amen.