Sexual purity is one of those hot buttons that our generation is currently facing. As society pushes the boundaries of morality and redefines what’s acceptable, we find ourselves faced with more questions than answers, especially in the matters of sex and sexuality.

So we asked Pastor Dennis Sy, author of Act Like a Man and Why Settle for Good Sex When You Can Have Best Sex? and the senior pastor of Victory Greenhills, to help us understand this topic. In this article, he and his wife, Thammie, share their thoughts with us.

Why do we need to fight for sexual purity?

Dennis: We have a highly sexualized society because our culture treats sex like a god.

As a pastor of a church filled with single men and women from different age groups, I’ve seen the effects of sexual impurity. Men and women are filled with shame, guilt, and sexual baggage because of this sin. Men and women who are addicted to porn carry the addiction into their married life and eventually defile the marriage bed, resulting in a bad sex life.

This is what sin does. It distorts the beautiful things that God created. In 1 John 2:15–17, we are warned not to look to lust to satisfy us.

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

1 John 2:15–17

God does not want us to exchange His truth for a lie. Let us not settle for cheap imitations of God’s original design of sex. God’s design is holy; the devil’s version is lust and perversion.

Sexual sin is driven by lust. It treats people like objects of pleasure, controlled by the click of the mouse, and slaves of another’s dark, sexual fantasies.

This is why it is common to hear men talk about women and sex like how they talk about sports: “Bro, did you score last night?”

The problem is we will never stop lusting until we actually see the dangerous and damaging effects of lust in our lives and our family. We will never surrender to God unless we experience how empty the promises of sexual sin are compared to the complete satisfaction that we can only find in Christ. We need to hate sin for us to find true freedom. What we tolerate we cannot change. That is why we need the grace of God to overcome lust and addiction to pornography.

Thammie: Every time I hear stories of the effects of sexual sin, my heart bleeds. I know I have barely scratched the surface of what is really going on in our society, but with what I have heard and seen so far, I might say I do not even need to do further research.

I would particularly like to speak to the women reading this blog. I do not mean to sound sentimental or emotional, but even as I type these words now, my only prayer is that you will realize how truly precious you are. You are loved way beyond my ability to express and way beyond your ability to comprehend.

I want to speak to you who have come to believe that the only way to receive love and affection is by allowing someone to look at you lustfully—and you’ve confused it with being admired and wanted. I want to tell you that your worth is greater than that. You were created beautiful, attractive, admirable, and worth pursuing and committing to. Anyone who offers you less than that does not care about or has not seen you for who you really are and how much you’re really worth.

I can only give one proof of your worth, and I hope that you will realize that this proof is the only one you will ever need to validate your value. I want to point you to the Cross.

Woman, you are valuable because Someone bought you at a price. Someone paid for you with His very life. Someone made a statement that you are so beautiful, so precious, and so very much loved—that He did not want to spend the rest of eternity without you.

Yes, you.

You who think that you still need to look a certain way and dress (or undress) a certain way for men to stop and take notice—you have already caught the attention of Christ!

You who think you need to compete with other women to have your place in a man’s heart—you have already won Christ’s affection!

You who have succumbed to pornography and masturbation, looking to be satisfied—Christ has long been waiting to satisfy you with genuine love and affection that would make everything else taste bland and look ugly.

How I wish you could grasp what I am trying to say. Don’t settle for less. Don’t settle for a false sense of being loved and wanted. Don’t settle for temporary pleasure. Don’t settle for men who will give you less than you deserve. You are worth more.