Sexual freedom seems to be a strong presupposition of our cultural conversation when it comes to human dignity, equality, and civil rights. One website defines it as “the license to lawfully live with and love whom you want, when you want, and how you want without social, political, medical or cultural persecution.” (The Woodhall Foundation) A writer for The Christian Post claims that many single self-proclaimed Christians are sexual atheists. That is, they believe in Jesus Christ but want him to stay out of their bedroom. They want the freedom to do what they want with their sex lives.
Here are a few questions I have rolling around in my head. They’re things you may want to consider before you embrace sexual freedom, or if you already are.
Dear mothers of the world, my heart is pleading with God for your daughters! My daughters! The motherless daughters. And all the lies about their womanhood that they will face on social media THIS WEEK! I’m calling upon you to join me in fasting and prayer MARCH 8-10 for the testimony of biblical womanhood, and to have three conversations with your daughters about what they will see in the media this week. While the coming public conversation has potential to wreak havoc on a girl’s belief system when it comes to womanhood, it can also be an opportunity for us to train up the younger women entrusted to us.
Meet Danet.
Originally from the beautiful island of Belize, she found herself living in the projects of The Bronx. Her hometown wasn’t full of multimillion dollar homes, but she had a yard and a fence and kids could play outside. Coming to New York, she lived ten floors up in the air with security bars on the windows. The elevators were full with the dirt and the pee. She literally had to escort her little girls to the park. And they couldn’t play beyond a certain time.
The highest risk of raising daughters in The Bronx, besides the influence of drugs and alcohol, is the promiscuous lifestyle. Danet made up her mind that she was going to hold on to Proverbs 22:6 and wasn’t gonna let it go because “my children were not going to be teenage vagabonds.” And that became her mission, but she could not believe what God asked her to do when she began praying that verse out loud.
Meet Marlene.
The story she has unfolded in my life is either one coincidence after another or the mighty, meticulous hand of God. Several years ago, she wrote me a letter inviting me to come to the Dominican Republic. I politely declined, explaining that at the time our ministry calling was to the United States. But Marlene refused to give up. Letter after letter, she insisted that the Lord had healing for her land through Pure Freedom and Secret Keeper Girl.
According to the United Nations, the rate of teen pregnancy in the country of the Dominican Republic is double the world average–105 out of every 1,000. Marlene would not settle for the brokenness she saw around her.
Who doesn’t like to see a good “celebrities without make up” photo? Our catty-inner-mean-girl aside, it’s actually a good thing to see the reality of magazine cover “beauty.” Countless surveys reveal that looking at these picture-perfect images impacts what we believe about our own beauty. (And it’s not making us feel great!) The younger you are, the more likely you are to believe that you can never be beautiful because the standard is so pore-free, zit-free, full-head-of-hair flawless! I’d love to see every mom sit down with her daughters and look at just how big the lies are that these photos tell. But so many times those links you click are full of sensual poses and topless women. For every mom out there who wants to show their daughter the lie but not the porn, I’ve created a collection of six telling images just for you. (Seven if you count the perfected photo of Katy Perry to the left.)
