To Those Whom Purity Culture Failed-- The "Crushed Rose"
I see you.
You aren’t invisible to me.
I know what you are feeling. I have been there, too.
You are the “crushed rose”, the water with spit in it, the chewed gum, the tape that no longer sticks… You know all the analogies. You have lost the thing that made you most valued…. Your virginity/purity. At least that is what you have been told. But what now? Is there any recovering? Or since you are now “tarnished” is there any point in trying anymore? Should you just give up and live a life of sexual promiscuity since once your virginity/purity is “lost” it can never be found again? Will any man want you now that you are “used”, and “tarnished”? Are you desperately trying to hide it, or pretend like it didn’t happen? You may be afraid of the repercussions from your parents, peers, or church. Are you feeling crushed by the weight of the guilt and shame?
Beloved…oh my dear beloved, cherished sister in Christ. Jesus wants the rose.
Perhaps you believe that to show our love, we give our bodies, because we were taught to save sex for the person we loved or for marriage. And you justified giving your body as an act of love. Sex certainly shouldn’t be less than that, but it is so much more! Why do we save our bodies for marriage? Is it just to show our love, or because we are afraid of std’s or pregnancy, or because we don’t want to be seen as a loose woman? None of those are reason enough alone to save sex for the covenant of marriage. Our bodies are meant to house the Holy Spirit. Our chief end, our telos, our purpose, is to glorify God. And sexual sins do not glorify God. We glorify God when we have mutually pleasing sex in the context of marriage because it is a picture of Christ and His Bride, the Church.
Listen to what Aimee Byrd says in her book, The Sexual Reformation:
“Our bodies are not merely biological. We know this intuitively. It is why sexual abuse is so traumatic—it is a deep violation of personhood and our eternal value. Our bodies are not merely earthly. They are part of the trajectories of divinely furnished prototypes! We have souls that are united to our bodies. Something both visible and invisible is represented in our beings. Our bodies are theological. And we are to be theologians, knowing the true God who created us. As Timothy Tennent says, “To put it simply, a theology of the body means that we understand the body as not merely a biological category but supremely as a theological category, designed for God’s revelatory and saving purposes.”
“In God’s providence, our bodies are covenant-redemptive symbols telling the story of what we were made for: communion with the triune God. This is the most beautiful of women—his church.”
Your desires are not evil in themselves. God made us sexual beings. We desire the intimacy and love of others and that is a good thing. But our ultimate fulfillment should be found in Christ and none else. Paul Tripp says in his book, Sex in a Broken World: How Christ Redeems What Sin Distorts,
“The struggle for sexual purity is not so much a struggle with sex but with the proneness of our hearts to wander, that is, with the tendency of every sinner to look for fulfillment of heart where it cannot be found. As long as you are looking for life in the creation, you won’t be seeking it in the Creator. Sex is a good and beautiful thing, but desire for this good thing becomes a bad and dangerous thing when it becomes a heart-controlling thing. The idolatry of the sinful heart is the problem. So when you ask sex to satisfy you, you have to go back again and again because the satisfaction of sex is powerful but frighteningly short-lived. Remember that asking the creation to be your savior always ends in addiction of some kind.
You don’t have to be ashamed of your sexuality, but you must guard your heart as you live out your sexuality.”
Perhaps, like myself in the past, you doubt that you could be a true Christian because you committed sexual sin…? Perhaps you now feel like you don’t deserve God’s love, are not worthy of His forgiveness, and must somehow earn His favor back. I know that feeling all too well. I wrote this after wrestling with my own sexual sin:
“I laid my head down to sleep
and dreamed a terrible dream-
I had lived my life thinking I was good.
I lived as if I could earn God's love and favor.
I tried so hard to live by the rules and pray often and read the Bible.
After all, the Good Book was the "roadmap for life".
I was a "good girl".
I was involved in church.
I didn't associate with certain people.
I did what I was told.
And I thought I was good.
I had prayed a prayer at 5, 10, 17, and many, many after that, 'just to be sure'.
I knew in my head I couldn't earn "The Gift" but lived the opposite.
I mean, anyone who watched me could see I at least deserved "The Gift".
I was good.
But I lived in constant fear of man, not God.
Fear of disapproval and disappointment.
Fearing letting Him down and showing I was undeserving.
Fearing He would take "MY Gift" away.
I was miserable. Unhappy. Depressed.
Yet I felt that I was doing enough to show I was "ok".
I had the "fruit" of having "The Gift".
Until one day I had done something I felt God could never forget nor forgive.
I couldn't forgive myself. I hated myself. HATED.
I could hear God whisper "I have forgiven You."
But I didn't believe. I could feel His hand on my arm and hear "Come."
But I turned my back.
"No!" I cried. "Can't you see that I have done wrong? I can't come to You until I have made it right. You are perfect and therefore cannot see me like this. I must fix it!"
Suddenly I heard the snap of a whip and cries of pain.
I saw blood splatter.
I heard a hammer pounding on metal between screams.
I smelled death.
I turned and saw Him on the cross with tears in His eyes.
Blood poured and the red river swirled at my feet.
He said "I carried the cross on my shoulders, so that you could start over."
I watched myself in horror as I climbed that cross and slapped His face. I slapped and slapped until I had no strength left.
"THIS. IS NOT. ENOUGH!!!!" I screamed.
"I, *I* have to fix it! I have to earn this! I am too ugly! My wrongs are to dark! I hate myself so how can You desire me? It is impossible!! Just, Stay here until I have completed my sacrifices and shown how much I deserve Your love and forgiveness. You HAVE to see that I deserve it, because I feel like I don't! Let me prove that I am worthy somehow."
In a quiet yet strong voice I heard Him say,
"IT. IS. FINISHED."
It was then I realized what I had done.
I realized that I had done this many times before.
I had diminished the cross, demeaned it.
Over and over I had screamed that His Grace was not sufficient.
He had chosen me, with no deserving on my part.
And I mocked him for that choice.
I had taken the gift and had written "Return to sender until debt is paid".
But this time I finally saw the fine print which stated "Your debt will never be paid for the price is far greater than you could afford".
It was then I understood Grace.
It was then I knew forgiveness and love unlike any other.
Love that saw me in my wretchedness and said, "I see beauty."
Forgiveness that felt the sting of my fists and yet said, "I understand. But I have cast that pain as far as the east is from the west, to be remembered no more."
I felt happiness unlike I had ever felt and was afraid to wake from my dream...afraid of losing this hope, joy, love, contentment, like all the times before.
Yet I never woke. For this was not a dream.
God really HAD given me a new life.
He really HAD chosen me to impart His Grace and mercy upon.
I just had to see myself as unable to earn anything.
I had to see myself as He saw me-unworthy.
I couldn't choose Him. He had already chosen me.
I just needed to believe. And I did.
And the "dream" goes on.”
-written by Jennifer Moodie
Here, the guys from Theocast encourage you with sweet Biblical truths:
The law tells us to be perfect, but we cannot. That is the point. It shows us our need for One Who could be perfect in our place. We needed a Redeemer. And God sent His Son. That is the Good News, the Gospel. The Gospel tells us of what has been done for us, not what we need to do to earn favor, love, or acceptance from God.
When we look at our “purity” as something we can achieve ourselves apart from the work of Christ, we are confusing law and gospel. We are implying that we can be righteous apart from the blood of Jesus. We are saying that our works make us right before God rather than the finished work of Jesus for us. The law demands perfection, and since we cannot keep the law—as James tells us when he says that if we fail in one point we are guilty of all of it—we needed a redeemer to keep the law for us. That is the good news of the gospel- Christ fulfilling the law for us, on our behalf. We are only pure through the shed blood of Christ covering our sins, and that includes our sexual sins. The idea that we are ruined or tainted or unworthy because of the sexual sins we commit is law and is devoid of the gospel.
Paul Tripp again says:
“Grace means we do not have to be afraid of what will be uncovered or exposed about us, because whatever is revealed has already been fully covered by the blood of Jesus.”
“The Bible never presents sexual sin as being of a different nature than other sins. Sexual sin may have different social and interpersonal consequences, but it is sin, no more no less. In Romans 1 sexual sin is listed along with envy, gossip, and deceit, even with something as mundane as disobedience to parents. That is why this is important. If you begin to think that sexual sin is sin of a different kind or nature, it is logical then to wonder if the same biblical promises, hopes, and provisions apply to it.
I sat with a woman who had struggled for years with same-sex attraction, while she said to me in tears, “No one treated me as if I was just a sinner. I thought my sin was different, and what worked for others wouldn’t work for me. It is wonderful to say that all sexual sin is sin—sin for which Christ died.” Sexual sin sits inside the circle of the rescuing, forgiving, transforming, and delivering grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a deceitful, lying enemy who would work to convince you that the provisions of the cross can’t help you because sexual sin is different.”
“And as you and I struggle with sexual purity in a world that has gone sexually insane, God says to us, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5). As God’s child it is impossible to fight the battle for purity by yourself, because you have been indwelt by a warrior Spirit who fights on your behalf, even when you don’t have the sense to call on him.”
“Could there be any greater encouragement for us as we are confronted with the fickleness of our hearts, our weakness in the face of temptations, the rebellion that causes us to do what is wrong even when we know it is wrong, and the arrogance of thinking we know better than God, than the gospel declaration that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus? God’s love is yours forever, not because you will be faithful but because he is. God’s love is constant, not because you earned it in your righteousness but because God knew it was the only hope for you in your unrighteousness. God’s love never wanes even when your allegiance to him does, because it is not based on your performance but on his character.
Here’s the point: if you think that God’s love is at stake, that he will withdraw it when you mess up, then in your moment of failure you will run from him and not to him. But if you really believe in your deepest moment of sexual foolishness, weakness, failure, or rebellion that when you run to him, he will greet you with arms of redemptive love, then it makes no sense to hide from him or to separate yourself from his care. Ultimately, in your struggle with sex, your love for God is never your hope. Hope is to be found only ever in his love for you. Since he loves you, he wants what’s best for you and will work to defeat the enemies of your soul until the last enemy has been defeated and your struggle is no more.”
HC Q60: How are you righteous before God?
A: Only by true faith in Jesus Christ; that is, although my conscience accuse me, that I have grievously sinned against all the commandments of God, and have never kept any of them, and am still prone always to all evil; yet God without any merit of mine, of mere grace, grants and imputes to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, as if I had never committed nor had any sin, and had myself accomplished all the obedience which Christ has fulfilled for me; if only I accept such benefit with a believing heart.
Titus 3:5-7
He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Romans 3:24
being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;
1 John 2:1-2
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.
2 Corinthians 5:18-21
Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
John 3:18
He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Romans 8:1
Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
The Place We Find Ourselves podcast
Worthy: Celebrating the Value of Women
The Sexual Reformation: Restoring the Dignity and Personhood of Man and Woman
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