Purity Revisited

It's so hard to believe that David and I have been married three and a half years! Time flies. Before we got married, we spent many of our "dating/courting/whatever you call it" days in separate states. That made the purity thing much easier. It's a lot harder to be tempted to go "farther" than the Bible permits when you're 600+ miles apart. When David moved here, though, we knew we wanted to stay pure to please our Savior and our parents.

Thankfully, we weren't stupid enough to think "it would just happen." Sure, we were saved. We definitely wanted to do what was right, but we also realized that we still had bodies of flesh. We also knew that there was nothing good in the flesh (Romans 7:18 says, "For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing..."). We came up with a list of things that we thought would help us meet our goal of being pure on our wedding day.

I'm going to share this list at our summer young ladies' Bible study tonight, so I thought I would share it here, too:

Before you read further, though, I encourage you to take a look at this post about the definition of purity.

1. Limit (even better, omit) physical touch. I Corinthians 7:1
2. Limit time alone. Romans 13:14, Philippians 3:3
3. Pray. James 5:16, Hebrews 4:15-16
4. Seek godly counsel and prayer. Proverbs 11:4, Proverbs 12:15
5. Dress carefully (click here to read my previous post on modesty and to get the verses that go with this point).
6. Relate to friends of the opposite gender as someone else's husband. Until you walk down that aisle and say "I do," you don't know for sure that you'll get married to that person. If s/he ends up marrying someone else, would his or her spouse be okay with what you're doing? If you end up marrying someone else, would you be okay telling your future husband or wife all the things you've done with your current boy/girl friend?

You definitely don't have to use our list, but if you're not married, I encourage you to come up with a plan to stay pure before marriage and stick to it! If you're already married, be one of those people who gives wise counsel and good advice and help those you know who aren't married. Either one would please our Savior!