Sensuality

Sensuality is any unlawful passionate attraction to carnal and sinful pleasures, to satisfaction of sexual desire, excessive sensuality that contradicts God's principles and turns the soul away from God. Sensuality can manifest itself in such spheres: thoughts and imagination about intimate closeness; desire to receive caresses and attention from the opposite sex; striving for physical closeness outside marriage; sensual pleasures through masturbation; viewing and reading erotic content of sinful nature; displaying one's body through indecent clothing; seeking sensual pleasures even in spiritual things, such as singing, prayers, and "baptism with the spirit"; unhealthy striving for laziness, comfort, and pleasure in eating. This is not only lustful attraction to something, but also distorted love for pleasures.

A teenager in his growth experiences new feelings that are unfamiliar to him, and he doesn't know what to do with them. And if none of his parents explains what this is and how he should behave, then the enemy of the soul sends obsessive thoughts with which the young soul cannot cope with human efforts in the absence of proper knowledge.

Hormonal changes and related sensations are not something sinful and frightening. This process is designed by God at a time determined by Him and carries hidden blessings for personality growth and transition of consciousness from childhood to adult life. God also designed that all these sensual lower powers should be under the control of reason, consciousness, and will and be restrained within certain frameworks of behavior. When these feelings get out of control of the higher powers of the soul, then they begin to dominate in life and control actions.

In the teenager's body and mind there is a struggle about which it is written in Galatians 5:17: "For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want." And if he doesn't understand what is happening to him, then the flesh will win victory after victory until it gains complete power over a person's will and conscience.

Sensuality, though pleasant in its representation and gives the teenager sensual pleasures, doesn't carry happiness in itself, doesn't give peace in the heart, but is a hidden rebellion against God's law and brings pangs of conscience and various mental disorders. God didn't create man so that he would be happy in sin and have peace while violating God's principles. Loss of purity of principles and heart is transmitted to adult life and manifests itself later in not a very good form for all with whom the corrupted person will live.

Hormones intensify the teenager's reaction to external stimuli, such as intimate images, gentle touches, affectionate words. And our world has made all kinds of sinful stimuli so accessible that an attack on any person's mind is carried out from all sides. All kinds of gadgets have become a source of all evil, mixing good and sinful in themselves.

The teenager has no knowledge, experience, and understanding of how dangerous the sin of sensuality is, and if there are no wise mentors in his life, then the world will offer its own model of behavior. Parents' task includes the obligation to outpace the world and enlighten the teenager in all spheres of the listed temptations, explain the nature of these images, explain how God looks at this, what the Bible says, and how to resist this.

It's necessary to consider the fact that in the parents' childhood there was no such progress of information flow, and such information could be found only in suspicious places, but today in many countries corruption of minors has become a state program that children are obligated to go through in all schools. And parents need to actively resist this evil through personal conversations with their children and through personal example of obedience to God's principles.

The teenager's culture and environment encourage any sinful lifestyle, and many media teach him that only adults can sin, and if he wants to become such, then he should try it himself. The image of a real man has been reduced to dog-like behavior, teaching that if a boy has sexual experience, then this makes him a man, but they don't say that a real man takes responsibility and is ready to bear the consequences of his choice.

The opposite sex is presented to teenagers not as God's creation that needs to be studied, known in the joy of heartfelt friendship and purity of relationships, but as an object for satisfying their passions and desires, which can be changed like gloves, considering only their own pleasures.

Sensuality forms carnal consciousness in the superiority of bodily and sensual pleasures over spiritual values, it makes a person spiritually blind and weak and opens doors for more serious sins that destroy soul and body. Such a soul is defiled and cannot abide in God's presence.

Inaction and ignorance of parents allow the enemy of the soul to catch inexperienced and trusting souls in his nets, and those who once stumbled on satanic temptations but then decided to go the straight path, the enemy of the soul tries to torment through pangs of conscience for mistakes made.

Offering Adam's wife the forbidden fruit, the tempter didn't tell about the consequences of this choice, but presented everything as "good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable because it gives knowledge," and young people take these fruits and eat, and also give to their friends, and they eat. But eyes open after this not in many.

Secular society has taken care that sin be beautifully decorated and easily accessible at any level. Hollywood and worldly writers make their harmful contribution to the art of corrupting minds. Programmers create programs to take time from teenagers and give them emptiness. And governments of many Western countries issue laws obligating children to study shameful abominations in schools and persecute those who try to resist this. But the Bible boldly opposes sensuality and calls this sin and works of the flesh, declaring that those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

Children and teenagers whom parents bring to Christ and from childhood teach to distinguish good from evil are under God's protection, and the enemy doesn't touch them. Enlightenment in the intimate sphere and explanation of why sin is so dangerous teaches the teenager that all kinds of sensual experiences will take place in their life, but when all this is under the control of reason and allowed at the proper time, then this is something beautiful that will gladden the heart all life, if used for its purpose and according to law.

Sports activities, physical labor, research of fascinating things, and other useful activities distract teenagers' consciousness from many temptations and fill their life with special meaning. Satan will always find something to occupy an idler with. The environment in which your teenager finds himself also has influence for good or evil. The teenage period is the time when you need to begin enlightening your children in all these questions. But if parents themselves live according to the flesh, then what can they give to their children?

1. Please read Galatians 5:16-17; 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5; Proverbs 5:3-5; 7:21-23; Job 31:1; 2 Timothy 2:22; 1 John 2:16; Romans 13:13-14; Matthew 5:28; 1 Corinthians 6:18-20, in light of this lesson.

2. What other verses from the Bible came to your memory?

3. What was revealed to you in this chapter?

4. What is sensuality?

5. How to distinguish normal feelings of a maturing teenager from sinful inclinations?

6. What does the Bible say about control over one's desires and feelings?

7. How can a thought grow into sin?

8. Why does conscience begin to torment a person after the sin of sensuality?

9. What lie does Satan instill in teenagers about sensuality?

10. Why can't a person be happy in sin?

11. How should parents properly speak with teenagers on intimate topics?

12. How does sensuality differ from real love?

13. What to do if a teenager has already fallen into dependence on sensual actions?

14. What happens in a teenager's soul if no one enlightens him in this sphere?