We all like sugar.
Cake, brownies, ice cream, pie, candy, lemonade, soda (a.k.a. “pop” for those from Michigan).
We like it in our coffee and tea and sprinkled over our cereal.
So if you like sugar, I have a challenge for you. Go find a 20oz cylinder of sugar (pictured, about the size of jumbo beer can) and start chugging. If you can eat/drink the entire thing within 5 minutes, I’ll send you $100.
Why is this absurd, let alone impossible?
Because sugar is not meant to be consumed by itself.
It needs the rest of the ingredients in a recipe to support it and balance it out.
But who likes recipes?
If I eat a cookie or some cake and it tastes good, and I know the good taste comes from the sugar, then why bother with the rest of it? Who wants to bother with tedious things like flour, eggs, milk, or butter? None of these are like sugar. And who wants to sit around waiting for an oven to heat up, make a mess mixing up ingredients, then have to wait even longer for everything to cook and then cool down? What a waste of time.
If the sugar is what tastes good, then let’s skip straight to it.
This is exactly what our culture has done with sex.
And it sells.
I can get a rush in a few seconds with no strings attached: sign me up!
Mess with dull and tedious things like selflessness, trust, commitment, loyalty, and unconditional love: I’ll pass.
If sex is what gives a relationship its excitement, then let’s skip the dull and tedious parts and go straight to the sex.
Sex is first introduced in the Bible in Genesis 2:24, That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
One flesh.
Two becoming one.
Inseparable.
Always there for one another.
Trust.
Commitment.
Marriage.
Try removing the sugar from the next piece of cheesecake you eat.
Skipping the trust and commitment of God’s design for a relationship (marriage) and going straight to the sex is the same as eating sugar on its own rather than balancing it with the rest of the recipe.
And we wonder why it leaves us wanting.
And broken.
And empty.
And insecure.
Eat a bucket of sugar and let me know how you feel.
Put lemonade in your car’s gas tank and let me know how it runs.
We can do things our own way.
Or, we can follow our Creator’s design.
One flesh means loving all of a person, not just their body parts. It means 100% + 100%. All of someone’s quirks, vulnerabilities, weaknesses, insecurities, and bad hair days.
When you lust at pornography, or fixate on the cleavage of an NFL cheerleader, or check someone out walking down the street, or have sex with your boyfriend or girlfriend (or fiancé ), you are missing essential ingredients to the recipe. In most of these cases you are attracted to an artificial representation of a human, a lie about who someone actually is and what makes them who they are (you are dehumanizing them). And even in an engagement, the recipe is still premature. It still doesn’t have the trust and commitment needed to make it work.
Def Leppard sings, “Pour some sugar on me, in the name of love…”
God says, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.”
You decide which voice you should listen to.
He is:
Author of Beyond the Battle: A man's guide to his identity in Christ in an oversexualized world
Host of the The Flip Side Podcast
Join an online men's small group led by Noah and team at BeyondTheBattle.net
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