I spoke with someone who believes that Christians can have sex outside of marriage and still have a close relationship with God. He rationalized it by saying, "You don't understand God's grace" and "...That is not what the Bible means." It made me want to write about the meaning of PURITY and how it makes God feel when we disobey. Even songs we sing about Jesus don't bless the Lord when we are in disobedience--He is not impressed with our biblical knowledge or our songs about Him or our "work for Him". He says our songs are just noise to Him. (Amos 5:23: "Take away the noise of your songs" ) When our heart is not with Him, and when we are "walking in the flesh," it is "enmity" with God. "Do not let immorality be named among you..." Ephesians 5:3. We are told to not even have lunch with a "so-called" brother or sister who is immoral. (1 Cor. 5:9-12) That is how serious God takes it! Galatians 5:17 says "For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, for these are in opposition to one another, so that you cannot do the things you please." I think of the hymn "Trust And Obey". Why not just "trust"? Because we cannot know God in a close relationship with Him without obedience. If we could just do anything we wanted, there would be no rules outside of ourselves to "obey." We are called to trust and obey, because we have a moral God who has set us aside for holiness.
