I’ve been working hard at my new venture of female entrepreneurship in small business. This has come after a period of intense thought and coaching following the COVID-19 outbreak. I am throwing myself into something new. It’s something exciting and it’s taking time to set up but it will be totally rewarding and YOU yes YOU are going on this journey with me and you’re going to help! In time I’ll tell you how!
Before we continue did you ever read that post I wrote about whether or not it’s a sin to have sex when your wife is on her period? I’m doing a PhD in Black Theology (specifically doing research in Womanist Theomusicology) so my post is not just opinion, its the sound theological reflections of a Doctoral student routed in fact. Informative, interesting and funny all at the same time lol here it is below:
This is really interesting and pretty funny too lol
Have you heard of the acronym “HALT” stands for Hungry Angry Lonely Tired? It has consequences on your mind if you are in a place where you are all those things, leaving you vulnerable to relapse into a negative state and initiate a craving reaction… Being in a HALT state also shows that you are not taking care of yourself like you should. Here’s how it affected me the past two weeks.
What happened
Sometimes we can be called to do things but we allow the calling to become bigger than the One who called us. As I said, I’ve been overwhelmed with doing stuff, which made me Angry. This stuff was stuff which I should be doing and is important and vital to the continuation of the ministry at my church. However, I’ve been trying so hard that I even wasn’t reading my Bible as much as I should which made me spiritually Hungry and I felt Jesus was becoming jealous of the calling in that I was giving it more time that I was giving Him. So I finally finished what I had to do which was important and time sensitive and then I crashed in an emotionally/physically exhausted way (one night I even stayed up till after 8am doing stuff) because I was very Tired, on day I took off. That is when Jesus revealed the following to me whilst I was talking to Him please continue to read the following which happened last week:
I was sitting having a lovely day off and laying down having a conversation with Jesus on my bed and I noticed a few things different about that day. Firstly, the visions that Jesus shows me regularly came back. Jesus shows me visions and lots of other things regularly but since I was so busy I noticed they stopped, which made me a bit Lonely I thought maybe Jesus wasn’t showing me them because I was moving onto something else, no, I just was soo busy that what I was doing was competing for mental space with Jesus and Jesus was just not willing to compete but when I took a day off and Jesus was no longer in competition I noticed they came back.
Secondly, Jesus opened my eyes to the fact that I had been having nosebleeds for 2 weeks straight, culminating in a rather large one on the day I rested. I noticed it but I didn’t put two and two together to see the correlation between how much stress I was taking on and the nosebleeds. I had been internalizing so much stress and it was coming out as nosebleeds, I didn’t notice till I took a day off that I was not allowing Jesus to take my burdens and it was beginning to damage my health. How much stress does a person have to be under to have nosebleeds every day? Answer, a lot and to be so stressed that you don’t even realise it’s making you ill is dangerous. So again, by letting the calling become bigger than Jesus and taking on things all by myself I was damaging my health.
Anyway, revelations aside I felt like had quite a nice conversation with Jesus. I was feeling really quite tired by the end of the conversation as I had done stupid things like stayed up all night till past 8am in the morning working, so pulling proper all nighters and I was knackered by my day off.
So… I decided I would actually get into bed and lay down. I went to sleep, had a very strange dream and then woke up.
When I woke up, being in a HALT state had initiated a craving reaction and for the life of me I could not stop thinking about sex… I had very naughty thoughts (which I will not expand upon) solidly for a good hour or two about having sex in the control room of a music studio… I’m not even kidding, there was absolutely nothing else in my mind and it was as lucid as if I was there… (I’m definitely going to hide this blog post from my mother) I’m a musician. We are more prone to finding things like that sexy… Don’t judge meeeeeeeee!
I couldn’t believe that I had actually thought such dirtiness just after having quite a nice, jovial conversation with Jesus before my nap.
And then I thought to myself:
“You know what? I’m not as good of a person as I thought I was”
and I shook my head at myself as I admitted my 29 year old humanity…
Normally, I avoid highly sexualised thoughts because firstly it’s a distraction and secondly it’s not good to focus on something that isn’t real. Lastly, there are Biblical reasons that revolve around how we are to conduct our thoughts and the Biblical mandate to not have sex before marriage (see my previous blog post about this)
I am not married so I need to rein it in for holiness reasons (and also for my own sanity…)
Jesus said that even if you think about doing a sin it’s just as bad as doing the sin. Sins can be committed both in our minds and by our actions. God tells us that we can sin in our minds just by lusting after someone. A person can sin by giving in to an inner emotion or passion and then dwelling on that emotion or passion like it says in Matthew 5:27-28:
(Matthew 5:27-28 NLT) “[27] “You have heard the commandment that says, ‘You must not commit adultery.’ [28] But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
Temptations are not from God but from Satan to drag us down and get us to do the bad things we are tempted to do and we should not meditate on our temptations. Sin does not occur when the emotion, thought, or passion first comes. However, if those thoughts are not resisted, then sin occurs when we give in to the emotion, thought or passion by dwelling on it (Never Thirsty 2019) like it says in James 1:12-15:
(James 1:12-15 NLT) “[12] God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. [13] And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, “God is tempting me.” God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else. [14] Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. [15] These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death.”
Additionally, what we think can make us dirty from the inside out as vocalised in Matthew 15:18-20
(Matthew 15:18-20 NLT) “[18] But the words you speak come from the heart–that’s what defiles you. [19] For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander. [20] These are what defile you. Eating with unwashed hands will never defile you.””
A person sins by dwelling on something that God has told us to avoid. When we sin on the outside we demonstrate to God, to others, and to ourselves that we have already sinned on the inside. God has asked us to resist the temptation to sin by fleeing from it. We are not supposed to see how close we can come without sinning. Fleeing starts with avoiding thoughts about the sin as it says in Romans 16:19:
(Romans 16:19 NLT) “[19] But everyone knows that you are obedient to the Lord. This makes me very happy. I want you to be wise in doing right and to stay innocent of any wrong.”
We read in 2 Timothy 2:22 to also run away from anything that would stimulates “youthful lusts”.
(2 Timothy 2:22 NLT) “[22] Run from anything that stimulates youthful lusts. Instead, pursue righteous living, faithfulness, love, and peace. Enjoy the companionship of those who call on the Lord with pure hearts.”
So we really shouldn’t be dwelling on nonsense that will stimulate us in a way that is not holy. Instead we should be focussing on living descent holy lives.
So it got me thinking, how did this happen? It happened because I was spiritually and probably physically hungry. I was angry, lonely in a spiritual and physical sense and I was spiritually and physically tired… This then kick-started an instinctive craving mode to try fill the gap normally occupied by Jesus who nourishes me, keeps me calm, gives me company and renews my strength because I was previously too busy to engage with Jesus.
So how do we deal with cravings/bad thoughts that come with being in a HALT state?
Read your Bible Daily – to avoid being spiritually Hungry
I admit it, I was not reading my Bible as much as I should, I can’t believe 2 weeks of not paying at much attention to Jesus as I should as well as skipping a few days of Bible reading and my mind went south, literally… lol. My mind was stressed and did not have it’s daily meal of the Word all the time and the word calms me down. So what did my mind then gravitate towards, something that would naturally calm a person down and give some sort of… umm… release? lol. Sex 🙂 you need to read your Bible every day. I read it morning and night. Read it more than you have to the Bible says we are supposed to meditate on the Word all the time. The Word is also food for our souls. My soul was half starved and hungry, no wonder I was thinking crazy things.
Change your focus – to avoid being Angry
Stop making your primary focus on things to do with Jesus or your ministry or everything and start making your focus actually Jesus Christ. Stop focussing primarily on your problems and the people making your problems worse as this made me Angry and look for constructive solutions and make sure you always give Christ supremacy in your thoughts.
Commit our thoughts to prayer – to avoid being Lonely
We commit them to prayer, my problem was that I was not talking to or thinking about Jesus as much as I should because I was so busy doing the things Jesus asked me to do. This made me Lonely. I then crashed (emotionally) it was only then that I noticed the vacuum in my brain where thoughts about and for Jesus would normally have inhabited. The vacuum was filled with sex, thoughts of sex anyway lol… I needed to pray more to inject my humanity with holiness.
(1 Thessalonians 5:17 NLT) “[17] Never stop praying.”
Don’t overwork – to avoid being Tired
(Psalm 127:2 NLT) “[2] It is useless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night, anxiously working for food to eat; for God gives rest to his loved ones.”
Does what it says on the tin really.
Conclusion
I was Hungry (spiritually starved), Angry (due to the people around me making my task more difficult), Lonely (from lack of interaction with Jesus) and Tired (from over working, I actually ended up in A&E for fatigue related accident, related to how tired I was from doing what I was doing). Apparently, when you are these things as a man you shouldn’t go on the internet…. Seems as though that works for women to! I didn’t go on the internet btw but my mind just went south lol.
Hungry – Eat your spiritual food which is reading the Bible
Angry – Change your focus to things for and of Jesus
Lonely – pray and talk to Jesus
Tired – Don’t overwork and give Jesus and your family the time they deserve
If it took two weeks of distraction, overwork, then me crashing, for my mind to be in the gutter goodness knows what other people who don’t read their Bible regularly or talk to Jesus regularly all year must be struggling with.
I was taken up to heaven and then taken into courtroom in heaven. God the Father was the judge. It was ornate like the Crown Court where the highest seat was reserved for the judge, which was God and there were places for Clerks and there were seats for the Defendant and Prosecution.
In this courtroom I had this sense that I was free but I saw where the Defendant would sit and I saw a young adult male, around my age (I’m 29 so around his early 30’s), sitting with his lawyer. He was in trouble and the court case that was happening in heaven was regarding him and he was talking with his lawyer.
The Defendant, so the person who was being accused, was wearing a dark grey almost black suit, he looked quite nice in it actually, I think he had a black skinny tie on and he was kind of tall. God also showed me that this guy told people he was a Christian. His lawyer was in a similar colour suit but was a bit shorter than the defendant and middle aged and was dressed smarter.
The lawyer was preparing all of the documents to make sure that the Defendant had every chance of a good defence, the lawyers body language suggested that this was crunch time and if this case didn’t win it was going to be hell for the young man.
I was in the audience part on the side of the Defendant, I was free to go where I wanted to but the Defendant had to stay put. Court had not started yet and everyone was not there but for some reason the Defendant had to turn up early with his lawyer. The movements of the Defendant because he was the Defendant were dictated to him because he was accused, so unlike me, he had to go where other people told him to go when they told him to go there.
As I said the court hadn’t started yet, people were moving around, the Defendant was there and only me in the audience, then for some reason the Defendant turned around looked me in the eyes and smiled. I got the feeling like he knew I was going to turn up, he knew I had his back and he knew I cared, which is why he turned around because he was expecting me.
Then something strange happened. I suddenly saw a vision within a vision. In this vision I saw the courtroom floor. Someone had dropped a USED CONDOM on the courtroom floor.
Now this signified several things:
Contempt for God’s law
Contempt for the institution of marriage because the person who did this NEEDED to used a condom because the person they were sleeping with they were not married to
Contempt for the woman who had been slept with
Contempt for sexual intimacy, this signified that sex didn’t mean much to the person who did this
The person who used the condom had had sex in an inappropriate place that’s why the condom ended up somewhere it shouldn’t have.
When I was at university when you would walk to university there would be used condoms on the ground because people, who had no regard for themselves and didn’t fear God used to have sex in the alleyways then dump the used condoms. God was showing me that that’s what that situation meant.
The used condom was also evidence. IT WAS EVIDENCE AGAINST THE DEFENDANT!!!!! That was the reason why he was there. He had been sleeping with his girlfriend and God had finally had enough and the Devil was able to come before God and accuse the young man and the young man was now really in trouble. I am guessing the lawyer was either an angel or the Angel of the Lord as in Jesus.
The scary thing about this whole thing was that God revealed to me that this heavenly court case has not happened yet. I WAS ACTUALLY SEEING THE FUTURE!!!
There is somebody out there, around my age, male (obviously) sleeping with your girlfriend and God is about to run out of patience with you.
Please stop, God can see what you are doing. The Devil is laughing every time you sleep with your girlfriend because IT knows that you are digging yourself into a hole. And the Devil cannot wait to meet you in the afterlife. God sends people like me to intercede for you but I cannot pray you out of hell if you’re already there.
Stop it, stop it right now, ask forgiveness of your sins, find some bible believing guys who you can be accountable with, get prayer, discipleship, deliverance whatever you need to do to get right with God but please just stop sleeping with your girlfriend. Sex is for marriage only.
Your actions are irritating God and one day you will not be free.
First of all, this blog post is not intended to shame anyone but rather to inform. I’m human just like you and that makes me a sexual being, I find my faith in Jesus gives me the strength to wait 🙂 . I said something to that effect in this song I wrote Follow this link to listen or use the embedded player below:
Now to the blog!
So I’m a Christian and I read the Bible everyday and I was meditating on the biggie in Christianity about no sex before marriage. It got me thinking about the time I was dating this guy who wasn’t a Christian. He’s the reason why I stopped dating guys who weren’t Christians actually lol and the last guy I dated who was a Christian is why I’m now open to dating whoever LOL, (unmitigated disaster!) Hah hah moving on.
Anyway back to the ex before the ex before the ex. So he used to pressure me for sex and the one after that did as well (who wasn’t a Christian either) I never gave in of course. I made some colleagues laugh once when I said:
“I want to date a guy who is a Christian because every time I date guys who aren’t Christians they keep on trying to have sex with me” lol
Anyway back to the ex before the ex before the ex. Now this guy grew up in a Christian household, his brother was a Christian and his parents knew the Bible and I remember having a conversation with him once when I was having dinner at his parents house he was saying
“why can’t we have sex where does it say in the Bible you can’t have sex before marriage?”
At that point I remember realising that I actually didn’t know where it said it in the Bible, his mother told me it’s somewhere in Deuteronomy, I just accepted what she said but I never looked it up. THAT WAS BAD I WAS BEING A BAD CHRISTIAN AND AN IDIOT YOU DON’T JUST DECIDE TO LIVE YOUR LIFE ONE WAY JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE TOLD YOU TO THAT’S NOT FAITH IT’S RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM YOU SHOULD LOOK UP THINGS IN THE BIBLE YOURSELF *slaps own wrist*.
I’m muuuuuch older now and I’ve read the Bible cover to cover more than once and I really think people could benefit from some clarity on this one so here are the verses in the Old Testament that teach sexual purity as in not having sex before marriage, do look these up to see them in context: You Sleep With It You Bought It! –
Exodus 22:16-17 [NLT] “If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged to anyone and has sex with her, he must pay the customary bride price and marry her. [17] But if her father refuses to let him marry her, the man must still pay him an amount equal to the bride price of a virgin.”
Explanation: If a man has sex with a virgin he should marry her, if her father refuses to allow the marriage the man should still give compensate her father somehow.
Don’t Sleep Around –
Deuteronomy 22:13-21 [NLT] “Suppose a man marries a woman, but after sleeping with her, he turns against her [14] and publicly accuses her of shameful conduct, saying, ‘When I married this woman, I discovered she was not a virgin.’ [15] Then the woman’s father and mother must bring the proof of her virginity to the elders as they hold court at the town gate. [16] Her father must say to them, ‘I gave my daughter to this man to be his wife, and now he has turned against her. [17] He has accused her of shameful conduct, saying, “I discovered that your daughter was not a virgin.” But here is the proof of my daughter’s virginity.’ Then they must spread her bed sheet before the elders. [18] The elders must then take the man and punish him. [19] They must also fine him 100 pieces of silver, which he must pay to the woman’s father because he publicly accused a virgin of Israel of shameful conduct. The woman will then remain the man’s wife, and he may never divorce her. [20] “But suppose the man’s accusations are true, and he can show that she was not a virgin. [21] The woman must be taken to the door of her father’s home, and there the men of the town must stone her to death, for she has committed a disgraceful crime in Israel by being promiscuous while living in her parents’ home. In this way, you will purge this evil from among you.”
Explanation: This verse implies that a woman should be a virgin before getting married and if a man accuses her of not being a “maid” before marriage and this is not true he should compensate his wife, if it is true according to the laws of that time the woman should be put to death. (N.B. when it talks about spreading the bed sheet what they probably meant was the parents had to show her bed sheet that was probably stained with period blood, In those days, that was the only way to tell if you were a virgin or not. You menstruate when you’re not pregnant, you don’t when you are. There was no pill to stop you from getting pregnant if you had sex, so when a healthy young woman was in a sexual relationship she would have gotten pregnant, so you couldn’t hide it. The period thing was a good test.)
However, since Jesus died for our sins currently we just have to ask forgiveness for our sins and not stone people! See the following verse for an example of this:
John 8:1-11 [NLT] – “[1] Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, [2] but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. [3] As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd. [4] “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. [5] The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?” [6] They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. [7] They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” [8] Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust. [9] When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. [10] Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?” [11] “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.””
If you sleep with her expect a shotgun wedding –
Deuteronomy 22:28-29 [NLT] “Suppose a man has intercourse with a young woman who is a virgin but is not engaged to be married. If they are discovered, [29] he must pay her father fifty pieces of silver. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he may never divorce her as long as he lives.”
Explanation: This is the same as the verse in Exodus but much stricter, the Exodus verse says if the Father does not allow the man to marry her he should still compensate the father but this one says you have to marry her and you can never divorce her. Also, I just noticed that the verse says apparently you violate a woman when you have sex with her before marriage! Other translations say he “humbled” her, the Septuagint, which is the Greek version of the Bible that our English translations are based on says he “ἐταπείνωσεν” her which according to the LSJ (an academic Greek dictionary) means: “lower, in point of height, reduce…of a plant, decrease in size…of a planet, suffer dejection…metaph., lessen, disparage, minimize, to be lowered or lessened, humble, abase, violate a woman…in moral sense, make lowly, humble, humble oneself…” (Tufts.edu, 2017) Middle Liddel (another academic Greek dictionary) says “…to lower…metaph. to lessen, to disparage,to humble, abase…in moral sense, to make lowly, to humble,to humble oneself…” (Tufts.edu, 2017)
Capture those sexy thoughts and make sure you don’t act on them!
Song of Solomon 2:15 [NLT] Catch all the foxes, those little foxes, before they ruin the vineyard of love, for the grapevines are blossoming!
Song of Solomon 2:7 [NLT] Promise me, O women of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and wild deer, not to awaken love until the time is right.”
Explanation: It’s natural to want to sleep with the person that you are with but you need to understand that you are human and therefore fallible. This sentiment is also echoed in Song of Solomon 3:5 & 8:4. Make sure if you are in a relationship with someone that you keep your passions for each other strictly to sex within marriage because this verse clearly states that you can ruin a good thing by sleeping with each other before the right time, which is after marriage.
As I said in the beginning, I wrote a song about being human and a sexual being but waiting even though it’s sexually frustrating, no one ever likes to talk about that part of abstaining from sex before marriage lol… It’s worth it though and even if you are sleeping with you gf or bf you can stop, ask forgiveness and move on:
John 8:1-11 [NLT] – “[1] Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, [2] but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. [3] As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd. [4] “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. [5] The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?” [6] They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. [7] They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” [8] Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust. [9] When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. [10] Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?” [11] “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.””
Paul does say, in the New Testament that if you’re really struggling to control yourself, you should get married! lol
1 Corinthians 7:8-9 [NLT] – “[8] So I say to those who aren’t married and to widows–it’s better to stay unmarried, just as I am. [9] But if they can’t control themselves, they should go ahead and marry. It’s better to marry than to burn with lust.”
Some young Christians tend to wear something called a Purity Ring, to represent that they are staying “Pure” till marriage, meaning that they are not going to sleep with their bf/gf before marriage, which is cool if you want to do that, I have one:
I tend not to wear it nowadays because it actually looks like an engagement ring which was fine when I was younger but now it’s counter productive as I’m single lol. You can get lots of different kinds. I quite like the ones that say “True Love Waits” I think that’s rather special! 🙂 There’s also this thing called a purity pledge, it’s more of an American thing, it’s not something that the Bible dictates it’s just a quirky American thing. The idea behind it is that youngster’s mainly teenagers go through some mentoring thing about no sex before marriage, they then sign this pledge/contract in front of the whole church promising that they will abstain from sex before marriage. We British would find that kind of thing far too awkward to bear… lol. Instead, we tend to encourage a silent commitment between you and God and if you need mentoring it is available.
Anyway, however you manage to abstain from sex before marriage make sure you don’t self medicate with porn, we all know that it doesn’t work. There’s enough info on it now to know that it’s not just spiritually bad for you but it’s medically not good for you either. See the playlist below where Pastor Mark Gungor discusses this, he’s REALLY funny lol, I don’t agree with everything he says e.g. the Condom thing, some women can’t take the pill because of high blood pressure etc. but he’s really funny! Follow this link or play using the embedded player below for more info:
If you want a secular view on this Russell Brand on his Trews show did a rather insightful piece on it, worth a watch, he really is a thinker, NOT FOR CHILDREN (doesn’t show anything bad but he swears 2 or 3 times. Obviously I don’t agree with the end bit where he says at the end do what you gotta do, obviously…) Follow this link to watch or watch using the embedded player below:
P.S. here’s two versus about what the Bible says about Homosexuality and Bestiality there are more but I think 2 will do…
Leviticus 18:22-23 [NLT] – “[22] “Do not practice homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman. It is a detestable sin. [23] “A man must not defile himself by having sex with an animal. And a woman must not offer herself to a male animal to have intercourse with it. This is a perverse act.”
