No Distractions

1 Corinthians 7:1–17

What are you doing right now that is keeping you from enjoying what God has for you? Satan will turn this plot around in a number of ways. For example, he often tries to get us so bothered by the one thing we have been commanded by God not to do, that we spend far too much time thinking about it. Ultimately it distracts us from obeying God in other areas.

We become so preoccupied with certain restrictions that God has placed on our lives that we forget, just as Eve did, that those restrictions are for our own good. Without them we would be in big trouble. Sometimes single women and men are so consumed with “trying not to have sex,” or at least trying not to go too far, that they are not enjoying the gift of being single. They see physical intimacy as something that they have to spend inordinate amounts of time and attention trying to avoid. Although they should indeed avoid having sex outside of marriage, singles often get so upset about the fact that they cannot have sex that they miss out on what God does want them to be doing in their relationship—learning about one another.

What joy there is in simply enjoying what God has for us right now. But in order to do that, we must not be consumed with what he has asked us not to do. The rate of adultery in our country has skyrocketed in recent years, and this can, at least in part, be attributed to a simple thing: Satan has dangled the carrot of singleness before the eyes of those who are married, and they have been carried away by curiosity and craving.

If you are single, he tries to cause you to become powerless in your singleness. If you are married, he seeks to make you powerless in your marriage. If you are working in the ministry, he wants you to yearn for more money. If you have children, he wants you to long to be free to do whatever you want, at the risk of abandoning your family. Whatever it is that God has not called you to do right now in your life, Satan will do his best to entice you with that very thing. Beware!

—Priscilla Evans Shirer

Reflection

1. Are you surprised that God talks about sex in such a candid way? Why?
2. Do you find yourself focusing on God’s restrictions rather than on what God encourages you to enjoy? How does this impact your view of God?
3. What has God called you to do right now? Ask God to give you joy in that thing and to keep Satan from tempting you away from the pleasures God’s calling brings.

1 Corinthians 7:1–2
Now for the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband.

Related Readings

Genesis 2:18–25; 1 Corinthians 6:12–20; 7:25–40; 1 Peter 3:1–7