Victorious Savior, Send your Spirit and strength to those battling sexual addiction. It is not a battle that can be successfully won alone. Sin of any kind is so devastating, not only because even one sin breaks the whole law and is deserving of eternal death, but also because it refuses to be content just to be something dabbled in or as an occasional passing interest. Sin wants to take over and be in control, so when sexual sins are committed, they are no different.
Lead those with sexual addictions to acknowledge that they are no longer in control, for as long as they believe the lie that they are in control, sin will keep mastering them. When outside help, guidance, and support are brought into the battle, the tide can begin to turn. Let your grace and forgiveness completely wash over the shame and guilt of stricken consciences and contrite hearts. Open the eyes of their hearts to see that sex will never provide the fulfillment or satisfaction that only you can. Redirect their thoughts and passions away from the empty lies of sexual immorality and toward the truth of your Word and promises. Free them from slavery to their addiction, and instead let them find genuine joy and delight in being slaves to righteousness.
God of Marriage, Sex is your gift that you established as a blessing to be enjoyed between a husband and wife. You call both single and married people to battle against sexual temptation and to abstain from engaging in sex outside of marriage. But your gift of sex can also be abused within marriage whenever it is neglected or avoided by one spouse without mutual consent. When your gift of sex is weaponized or leveraged by one spouse against the other, it can cause tremendous damage. When spouses forget or refuse to acknowledge that in marriage, their bodies are not their own, but belong to each other, sex mutates from a loving act of service to a self-centered, self-serving, mess.
For those marriage relationships that have legitimate challenges that hinder or prevent sexual intimacy, I pray for you to patiently guide those spouses as they work through those issues. Help all people – married and single – to honor marriage and sex by keeping the marriage bed pure. Richly bless married couples with healthy and happy sex lives. Through them, provide a sanctified and refreshingly positive view of sex in a world that has spoiled it so much.
God of Grace, When we diminish your designed purposes for sex, it shouldn’t surprise us that our twisted perspective ends up turning your gift into a temptation. I am not only susceptible to the snare of sex, but am also guilty of sinning against myself and others in my misuse and abuse of it. I am left with nowhere to turn but to your cross for forgiveness. Assure me that there alone do I find gracious cleansing for all sin – including every sexual sin I’ve ever committed.
Then, having been renewed and restored, equip me with the spirit necessary to fight the battle against sexual temptation. Guard my heart from being drawn into any situation that would allow a spark of temptation to flare up into a raging fire. Help me have the self-awareness to recognize when and where this particular temptation is tailored to my own unique weaknesses, and the discernment and discipline to avoid those scenarios. If I consistently fail to put up a fight on my own against this temptation, give me the courage to seek help from others who genuinely want to support me in these struggles. Do not let me allow my failures to suffocate me in this area. My sins do not define me or change my identify in you, therefore build me up with more of your grace and create in me the desire to live a pure and holy life for you.
God of Love, Sex is all around me, everywhere, all the time, and with it, the temptation to treat it like any other pleasure that is up for grabs whenever it is desired. But you didn’t create it to be treated like some recreational activity available for anyone to engage in at any time, according to their own personal preferences or standards. Rather, you intended for it to be a uniquely special experience exclusively between a husband and wife, safeguarded within the bond of marriage. Although I live in a society that doesn’t see it that way, help me to honor it in accordance with your plans for it.
Although sex is itself physical, keep clear for me its spiritual connection so that I am able to tap into your Spirit’s strength to battle my thoughts and urges. And, while the abuse of your gift of sex will always cause damage and harm to hearts and lives, let grace and your gospel be for me the driving force behind my desire to honor it. I don’t live under the fear and slavery of the law, but in freedom that longs to walk in your ways. Guide me to love you by treasuring your precious gift of sex in the way that you intend.
Lord of Love, You established marriage as a foundation for the family. Through it, you intend to draw husband and wife closer to each other and to you, you provide the ideal setting for raising children, and you build strong communities. May we always have a high view of the blessed institution of marriage!
Yet, just as it has with everything else, sin wreaks havoc on marriages, too. I pray for all those whose marriages are troubled. Intervene in every possible way to not only deter divorce, but to strengthen struggling marriages. When the marriage wounds are self-inflicted by either spouse, grant repentance, confession, and forgiveness, so that reconciliation and healing can take place. When the damage is caused by external circumstances or other matters beyond their control, replace any division with determination, so that husband and wife grow through the shared experience of persevering together. When they aren’t even sure what the root cause(s) of their problems are, provide them with transparency and clarity, and grant them a special measure of patience and grace with each other. Recommit all husbands and wives to each other, to their marriage, and to you.
Lord and Savior, When you willingly endured not only the cross, but also the ridicule, the abuse, and the punishment that preceded it, you showed us what sacrifice looks like. So when you call husbands to love their wives sacrificially, as you loved the church and gave yourself up for her, we have a standard for which to strive.
Raise up husbands to not only speak lovingly to their wives, but to show it by their actions. Move them to meet their needs. Lead them to provide safety and security. Help them to foster a relationship with their wives that is open and honest, where struggles can be shared and successes celebrated. Let them find joy in being present and delight in connecting with their wives on a deeper level. Bless their intimacy and let their wives be for them the standard of beauty and attraction. Build them up as spiritual examples, making the most of every opportunity to model repentance and extend grace to others. Grant them unwavering trust in you and joy in serving their wives fully.
So is being the one in the position of having to even consider having such a procedure carried out on her own body, as well as the tiny body given life in her womb. My heart goes out to every expectant mother ever having to wrestle with such a gut-wrenching decision when two lives are at stake.
In this era of “toxic masculinity,” however, I will refrain from telling women what they should do with “their own bodies” (the ones which in reality belong to the gracious God who formed and redeemed them…). Instead, let me steer the conversation in a little different direction and focus on what too often has been too little a part of the discussion: Me.
Men.
After all, lest we forgot how the whole process works and how children are conceived in the first place – men, I think we have a role to play here. Think about that. Men, if we played our part the way we ought to, instead of treating women like scorecards and God’s gift of sex like an itch to scratch, it’s not likely we’d be where we are today, giving so much attention to such an atrocity as abortion. In case I’m not being clear enough, let me put it bluntly: we’re a REALLY big part of the problem. We’ve failed to live up to our noble role of husband-to-wife, head-to-helper, simply because we cannot control ourselves enough to reserve our passions for one woman for life. We’ve allowed the blessing of marriage to become marginalized. We’ve debased, devalued, and degraded sex by tearing it away from the marriage boundary for the purpose of self-gratification, instead of protecting it as the most selfless expression of love by which a spouse is served.
But, there is hope, for what we have been in the past does not need to be who we are today or who we will be in the future.
“Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor… adulterers… will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
(1 Corinthians 6:9–11 NIV)
“Washed.” “Sanctified.” “Justified.” Men, those are powerful realities in Jesus! They are the kind of realities that change a man! They are the kind of realities that free men from being tied to the world’s cluelessly distorted definition of manhood and marriage. They are the kind of realities that free men to embrace and strive for their God-designed role in marriage to sacrificially “love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25).
Tell me our society wouldn’t be better for it if every man would “leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh” (Eph. 5:31). Tell me marriages wouldn’t be better for it if they actually lasted “till death do us part” and husbands committed to strengthening their oneness bond with their wife. Tell me women wouldn’t be better for it if they had the security of a committed husband in their marriage. Tell me children wouldn’t be better for it with committed husbands doubling as dedicated E64 fathers to serve as loving, protective superheroes for their kids.
Tell me unborn children wouldn’t be better off if the only thing we ever aborted… was any discussion of abortion in the first place.
Men, we have more power to actually make that a reality than we realize. Let’s do more to own up to our role in this matter and realize that we need to be a bigger part of the conversation. Unborn lives depend on it.
