"Passion Should Lead To Marriage Not To Sin" by Octavia Vance

I recently bumped into Pastor Antonio Vance and his wife, Octavia E Vance on facebook and oh my daysssss...I love them to bits already. This amazing couple are the founders of Truly Faithful, a ministry dedicated to helping singles prepare for godly marriages as well as encouraging married couples stay strong in hard times.  What I love most about them is that they are so real, unlike some Christian couples who pretend all is well and make it seem like their marriage is a bed of roses. Anyway, that's gist for another day *winks*  Today, I will like to share something I read on their page so sit down, relax and GRAB A NOTEPAD because you might need one.

"Passion Should Lead To Marriage Not To Sin!" by Octavia Vance

    Singles, one way to know if someone really loves you is their ability to court you without "pressuring" you to sin with them. Remember sex is for marriage only so anything done sexually outside of marriage is either fornication or adultery. So you're not having "premarital sex" before marriage you are having fornication. If they really love you enough, they will not "pressure" you to indulge into sin with them and vice versa. And if you both have already fallen into sin with each other, then if Christ is really in both of you, you will repent and court the right way.

We know this all too well as when we first met, we started off on the right track but after letting our passion for one another get the best of us, we fell into fornication. And as I've said before though it wasn't many times, each time we did, I felt like a whore afterwards. The guilt that comes with fornication is one that a true believer can't easily get over because you feel you've let your Savior down. That's how I felt each time and I would cry and hate myself. My husband would feel guilty because he felt he should had been the stronger one since he was a believer longer than I was. But see, we didn't have to fall had we done either one or two things since we knew we were the right one for each other. And that was either marry or separate. So eventually since we felt we weren't quite ready to marry, we separated.

But when we separated, it was not to date others just to fill the void of each other nor was it to find someone else but it was to draw near to God, to repent for our sins and to make sure marriage was what we needed to do. We knew we were burning for one another and the scripture even said that it's better to marry than to burn but we wanted to be totally free from sexual sin FIRST before entering into something so honorable. So what's the point?

Passion between a man and a woman is actually a normal and natural feeling. If it wasn't, it would not have been mentioned in scripture. Attraction between a man and a woman is also natural as God made man to be attracted to woman and woman to be attracted to man but if passion and attraction leads a man and a woman to sin then that's not of God. But if passion and attraction leads a man and a woman to marriage, then that is of God. Let me explain.

1 Cor 7:9 (NIV) says, "But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion".

Ok in its proper context, this scripture is referring to a single believing man and a single believing woman who have much love, attraction and passion for each other. So God is saying to them, yes you can have self control but with these kinds of passionate feelings for one another, instead of trying to continue in restraint, it is better to marry once and for all and to live in holy married union than to burn and be on fire with sexual desire for one another. In those times, some were forbidding singles to marry so they could stay single and serve the Lord wholeheartedly but Paul by the Holy Spirit told singles it is not a sin to feel passion for one another but they needed to honor the Lord and marry instead of constantly trying to practice restraint and risk falling into sexual sin. In other words, since there was no law against marrying, it was better for them to marry and share those mutual feelings of passion toward one another FOR LIFE!

This rules out any single trying to use this scripture just to have "legal sex" in the confinements of marriage because in its proper context, this scripture is for mature believers who love the Lord and love each other but may be struggling to restrain sexually. So God is saying instead of burning in passion which will eventually lead to sin, marry each other for life. In today's time, two mature believers already know they love God and each other, they are simply trying to wait until what they feel is the right time to marry but in those days, many were forbidden to marry whereas today that is not the case.

So I say all of that to say while passion may not be sin, it can lead to sin (just like so many other things can lead to sin) but that was NEVER the purpose of passion. Passion between a single man and a single woman is to lead to marriage. If you ever look up the word passion, some of the definitions are, 'strong and barely controllable emotion', 'a powerful emotion such as love' and 'strong sexual desire'. So God knows that with passion comes the desire to be sexual with someone of the opposite sex, remember it was God who created sex for marriage. God is simply saying it is better to marry because passion can turn into sin.

Be Wise Singles and don't test the Lord by trying to continue to resist each other knowing how in love you both are and knowing how passionate you both are toward one another. Don't allow something that's pure in the eyes of God (mutual love, attraction, passion) to turn into something He frowns upon (heavy petty, sexual sin, fornication). Because if it's really God then the passion you have for each other will lead to marriage not to sin. And for those who have already fallen into sin, if it's really God, the passion you have for one another will lead you to repent and then marry or repent and then separate. Either way in the end, God's kind of love for each other won’t let you to continue in sin! No matter if you decide to marry or separate, don't let any ungodliness surround or saturate Godly love! ~Take Heed~

1 Cor 7:9 (GWT), "However, if you cannot control your desires, you should get married. It is better for you to marry than to burn [with sexual desire]".