Once I became an adult, I began to participate in activities reserved for adults; drinking, watching adult movies, etc. It certainly seemed like the “natural” thing, and the “adult” thing, to do. This is what I waited for, right? In time though I began to see that perhaps drinking wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. My best drinking buddy, a great guy with a real zest for living for the moment, was killed running off the road after a night out drinking. Still, I continued on being an “adult,” although perhaps with a little more moderation. More than a decade passed before I found that my life and marriage were headed for the ditch too. Though I’d never been religious in any sense of the word, one day I found myself drawn to the Bible and came to these words of Jesus:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Matthew 5:27-28
This was an incredibly different standard than anything I’d ever considered and somehow it hit home with me. I had thought that looking at other women was just a normal male reaction, but only in that moment did I first realize that pornography really amounted to nothing more than video adultery and that it had many of the same destructive consequences on relationships as adultery itself. I began to reflect on the activities that the world calls “adult.” How are they “adult?” Do they reflect intellectual maturity? No. Do they represent emotional maturity? Hardly. Do they embody spiritual maturity? Certainly not. I couldn’t even honestly call it physical maturity. The only kind of maturity this seemed to relate to was the “maturity” we gain upon reaching puberty. This doesn’t really represent any real maturity at all, but rather a fixation at the earliest stages of our adulthood.
You can find lots of items with “mature content” and establishments that say they are for “adults only” but the truth is that you won’t find much at all inside representing intellectual, emotional, spiritual or even physical maturity. If I want some true “adult” entertainment, I find I do best turning to the message of the cross rather than the X. You can live in the shadows of life where you’ll only see its darker side or you can take your stand in a different place where everything you do can be done in the light. You can base your life on what’s just “natural” or you can base it on what’s supernatural.
The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.
Words of Jesus Christ in John 3:19-21
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20