Holy and Honorable

August 13

We live in an age of promiscuity. That’s nothing new. There is no sin that catches God off guard. As a dear pastor once put it so clearly, with a smattering of humor, ‘God’s eyebrows never go up.’ We can’t take Him by surprise with our new morality, which is an up-dated version of the old immorality which He condemned long ago.

Does this mean we are relegated to a state of disfavor in God’s eyes? Does this mean we have no hope of approaching His throne and placing our sins under His blood and finding a place of forgiveness and refuge under His wing? It does not. God is in the business of forgiving all our sins and healing all our diseases (Psalm 103:3).

The fact that the plan of salvation is woven through the pages of the Old and New Testaments from its earliest pages (see Genesis 3:15 for God’s statement to the serpent that the Promised Child of the woman would destroy him and his works) is our assurance that the Lord’s promised hope of deliverance from sin stands forever.

In I Thessalonians 4:3, 4, Paul clearly tells us, “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified, that you should avoid sexual immorality, that you should control yourself in a way that is holy and honorable.” It is not His plan that we be promiscuous; He wants us to be faithful for a lifetime, but if we are not, He wants us to be redeemed.