Why On Earth Did God Create Sex So Powerful?

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If you’ve struggled with sexual temptation, maybe you’ve wondered why sexual desire is so difficult to resist, or even wondered why did God create sex so powerful?

You’re not alone in wondering. Parents wring their hands as they watch their kids walk into a world pushing sex at them, husbands and wives wonder if their beloved will be faithful, and people the world over are sounding alarms over the very real problems of rape, sexual abuse, and sex trafficking.

Wouldn’t it have been better if God had designed sex with a little less power, created sexual desire with just a bit less voltage?

I’ve felt the iron grip of lust refuse to let me go when I was trying to break free from sexual addiction. I’ve got kids and know that helpless feeling of watching them walk into a school prescribing condoms and affirming sexual confusion. And some of my earliest memories are of family members weeping over infidelity.

Sexual and romantic desires have the power to break hearts, enslave bodies, and wreck the world.

So why on earth did God create sex so powerful?

I want to unpack this a bit because it will help all of us to better navigate this sex-saturated culture.

But this week, I want to begin with this reality: Sex is not the problem, and the power of sex is not a product of the fall.

Sex was powerful before sin entered the picture. In fact, I dare say sex was more powerful then. The atomic power of sex is not something the evil one invented, not something he would ever even dream of. Sex is God’s invention and He loves what He has made.

What we object to most is not the power of sex, but the power of sin. Whether how we eat, drink, marry, parent, work, or play, sin hijacks the power of good and steers it destructively.

Sex is one of the most important areas of humanity Jesus came to “seek and to save” (Luke 19:10). He didn’t come to extinguish sexual desire. He didn’t come to pull the plug and shut the whole thing down. Sin has done that. Jesus came to plug it back in, to restore all the love and life and joy and glory and power that sex is meant to have.

So in whatever way sex feels too powerful in your life, begin by bringing all your sexual addictions, fears, hurts, and sorrows—sins you’ve done and sins done to you—to Jesus. And keep bringing them. He has come not to condemn but to save. Trust Him to do so.

I’ll write more about this next week, but for now, I have a question: What could it do if we started thinking of sex not as the enemy but as an ally that has been taken captive by an enemy? Leave a comment below.

For you,
Josh

Thanks For Reading.

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20 comments

  • Sex is not our enemy… Sex is a powerful ally taken captive and in need of men of courage willing to be equipped and led into battle by the one who came to save and restore.

  • What a compelling, well-written piece! I needed this reminder. All too often I get bogged down with the idea that it is too late for God to repair modern man’s corruption of healthy sex. Beyond repair, I think to myself. But I can act locally without worrying about global challenges. What better place to start than myself–accepting the fact that God did not make a mistake when he created me with powerful drives . Take my fears and concerns to the Cross, just as you suggest. Good stuff!

  • I am 61, married for 36 years, over 20 of which have been virtually celibate due to my wife’s disability. I can tell you that desire denied in the presence of covenant beauty is torture. I wish God had not made this desire so strong … but I also think it likely the permanent denial of desire forces growth.

    • Tom, your situation sounds so difficult — for you and your wife. God bless you, brother! As you choose faithfulness to your wife even in the pain of not being able to be sexually intimate with her, you are living out an expression of “this is my body given for you” (Lk. 22:19) and so “sharing in the sufferings of Christ” (1 Peter 4:13, 19). I am humbled by your courage and the love you’re living out, and I will pray for you.

  • It really dosint make sense to me though. The knowlidge of benifets from a companionship of marriage is a more powerfull motivator for me to marry then the erge for sex. The erg wich is easily satisfied periodically with masterbation, wich can actually take up time and get in the way of such a commitment as marriage. Maybe its just me but the sex drive seems to be a force of nature changing any rational person into a mateing machine. No wonder so many fall to lust. Why if I were to guess the only reason God gave us such strong sex drives is to create the scenerios leading to the apocolypse in the first place. Wich if he did make these drives so, I do admit that does make God a bit a pervert by modern christian standerds.

  • I am a Christian woman I have been devoiced since 2003 I have been celebrat for almost 10 years, my body is God’s temple I haven’t had any real sexual desires until I had this dream last night I met this man in my dream and we had a sexual encounter it was so intense I had forgotten how good sex was until my dream I don’t believe in self pleasure because I know its against God’s word the feeling has not subsided I am miserable but I will not yield to temptation what do I do?

    • Hi Ethel, thank you so much for your vulnerable question. I know so many people can relate with having a sexual dream and then experiencing an increase in sexual temptation afterwards. I’m not an expert on dreams, but in my experience, I’ve found it’s very helpful to be curious about our dreams. I typically think dreams have a few different possible origins:

      1) Sometimes God speaks to us through dreams, as He did often in Scripture. Because God doesn’t tempt us, your dream doesn’t sound like this.
      2) Sometimes dreams can be prompted by the enemy. He is a tempter, accuser, and liar, and he likes to intimidate and stir fear. I’m not sure, but it’s possible your dream was a spiritual attack. A dream like this might have come as a way to accuse and tempt you.
      3) Sometimes dreams are our heart’s way of giving voice to something going on in our lives, including sometimes voicing something we’ve not been aware of or paying attention to. A dream like this could be your heart’s way of voicing a longing for intimacy, comfort, strength, love, or something else.
      4) Sometimes I think dreams can be a combination of either 1 and 3 (when God stirs your heart to help you pay attention to an unmet need, a wound, or a grief you’re carrying).
      5) Sometimes I think dreams can be a combination of 2 and 3 (when the enemy takes your heart’s legitimate longing and twists it into something sinful).

      So be asking God for discernment to know where your dream came from and what it’s about. If you discern it was from the enemy, command him to be silent and to leave you in the authority of Jesus Christ. (You can do the same if you think the enemy is tempting you.) If you wonder if the dream was a cry of your heart in some way, ask God what it means. You might also consider questions like: Who was the man in the dream or what was he like? Does he represent something that you are needing or longing for?

      You may need help with this, especially if the temptation doesn’t subside or if some of the memories of the dream are persistent and bothersome. Have someone pray with you. And if one of the women on our team can help, please reach out to us.

      I hope this is helpful in some way. God’s grace and peace to you, my dear sister.

  • “The permanent denial of desire forces growth.” I can see that. It is much easier to fast for 40 days and eat nothing, than it is to tease yourself with a few bites of your favorite dessert on days 3, 18, 22, and 39 and then completely abstain from food on the other 36 days of your fast. In fact, I would say that you are setting yourself up for failure if you do that.
    I have also found that the intermittent gratification of desire, accompanied by long periods of involuntary denial in between, yields bitterness and resentment in the heart of the one who struggles to find his footing in such a slippery state. These emotions (bitterness and resentment) will likely erode the intimacy of a marriage, and they may erode one’s faith in the benevolence of the grand design and hence the grand designer.
    From the moment god pitted his craftiest, most intelligent, and perhaps most powerful creature against two highly curious, inquisitive, naive human beings, he has been setting us up for failure ever since.
    We enter into this world as an object of god’s wrath, possessing a wretched nature that he despises. In fact, he despises your very essence with a burning rage so fierce that it will torture billions of human souls in it’s unending, unimaginable heat.
    You are to worship him as an adoring slave for not smiting you because of the sexual monster lying dormant within you until it awakens around 11 or 12 years of age. It is at this spuriously-labeled “age of accountability”, according to a murky theology of moral agency and divine judgment where you will be consigned to an eternity of hellfire if you should find yourself fornicating, even in your mind’s eye, with a member of the opposite gender that your brain is hard-wired to find attractive. So you better hope to quickly find a spouse with a regular, healthy libido, or shut yourself down completely and become a eunuch for the sake of his kingdom. If a body part causes you to sin, cut it off, right?
    Paul’s advice about marrying being preferable to burning with passion is just about the most ridiculous piece of relationship counseling I have ever heard. The likelihood of a man who is burning with sexual passion, finding a woman who is willing to consistently satisfy that passion, is quite small. But then Paul was probably not in the spirit when he wrote this, just like his advice to lonely old widows to stay single. I am hesitant to take relationship advice from a guy who says he does not permit a woman to teach a man, but to keep her mouth shut in church. It’s a miracle that christians aren’t more like muslims in their treatment of women with this kind of doctrine. Most churches just ignore it, disregarding the fact that Paul is appealing to god’s order in creation and also some obscure reference to angels to substantiate his point. I digress…
    The deeply troubling crux of the matter is that evidently we are all part of some cosmic experiment, and god is a spiritual and eternal hitler. To the chosen race of souls that believe and obey the words of his human mouthpieces, they will be heirs of his great and glorious vaterland. The rest are just dead branches, to be broken off and thrown into the fire; salt that has lost its flavor, good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men, like jews in a concentration camp, or grotto, or whatever god-forsaken diaspora they should find themselves wandering in.
    I don’t expect to find this diatribe amongst the comments of Generation Ministries. After all, your intent here is probably to justify your christianity and find strength in the agreement of other christians among you. Yet I appeal to you as one who yearns to re-discover an intelligent designer who is wise, relatable and logical. I am deeply grieved by the seemingly foolish flaws that infest every crack of the christian deity i have believed and hoped in for decades. My heart mourns that it has all but lost the ability to relate to the one for whom it was supposedly created. The illogic i see in the foundations of what i’ve been taught to believe has led me to a dry and barren wilderness and i have lost my way.
    I hope to hear the voice of the one i once thought i knew. I hope for any response at all, but i pray that his wisdom, logic, and love can find a vehicle to convey his voice to one who is asking to hear it. I hope that he cares enough to demonstrate a clear and intelligble response to my prayer.

    • All I will say for now is that we need to talk. You are approaching this topic at a level that is not common. Simpler problems can be resolved with simpler answers and all is well and good. But when you begin to tap into an area that has answers, but those answers are not lawful to utter, things begin to get very complex. I am not saying that I have the answers to your questions, just that when I asked the same questions that you are asking, with the same level of spiritual, mental, and physical devastation that you express, I did actually receive some answers in a way that simply cannot be explained. It’s not the answers to your questions that I offer you, it’s the way in which I finally found my own answers for myself that might help you find your own answers. I will contact the moderator of this discussion with my contact info. I will ask him to contact you, and you can contact me if you desire.

  • Thanks, I needed to read this. “What could it do if we started thinking of sex not as the enemy but as an ally that has been taken captive by an enemy?”

    I’ve honestly been really angry with God for giving me sexual desire, wishing he would either take it away completely (basically make me asexual), or give me a spouse. I’m going to possibly start dating soon, and I’m afraid of whether it’s right or not, being open about my struggles and feelings around sexuality.

  • Every one seems to have an opinion it seems, but no real answer. You say “give it to Jesus.” Well, if it were that easy it would be a different world all together…such a common answer I hear all the time yet the people who say that don’t even know how to “give it to Jesus.” How do you pray when lust or desire is driving you insane? You are obviously not in your right mind when lust takes hold, so how can you, in the heat of the moment, give it to Jesus? When people say “just give it to Jesus” when asked how to stop a particular addiction, I just want to tell them how fake and stupid they sound. If I had a glass of water, it would go over their head. All these pastors saying “give your lust or problems to Jesus” while they themselves are caught in the same sin. This was a pathetic article. How do you “give it to Jesus?” How? By prayer? I’ve prayed many times, firmly believe in the power of Christ, rely on Him, hope in Him, and yet I am over come with lust…tv, supermarket, work; anywhere a beautiful women white tight clothes my wander, there my lust lays waiting to take hold. Anyone who says “just give it to Jesus” in my opinion doesn’t know how to even run their own lives. It’s an easy answer to a question no one knows the answer to. If “giving”our problems to Jesus were that easy, we would eventually no longer sin…which is impossible as we are ALL SINNERS and will remain so until we die. In Gods eyes through Christ we are made clean. That doesn’t mean we stop sinning the day we are saved, it means Christ alone conquered sin. We cannot. Get it straight author.

  • I’m divorced for 11 years , celebate praying for God to send me a spouse to celebrate sexuality in a Godly way that’s my prayer bf He calls me to heaven.

    • Umm, if divorce wasn’t biblical you may have to bear remaining celibate, God wont honor committing adultery through a second marriage unless it was a biblical divorce then it wont be adultery. Im stuck there too and sadly am rebelling, i wish i heeded “every mans battle” book. Sin is not satisfying. I think i may be apostate because of how much ive done it and justified it due to being lonely. May God grant a miracle deliverance from how powerful lust is…

  • Hi,
    I am struggling wit this as a born again Christian. Basically when I was borm again it was not “planned”, it just happened through a series of circumstances when I least expected it. Thing is I have been in a committed, loving, serious relationship for 4 years. The person I am with was in an accident which caused a disability. It was the first time in my life I chose someone because of the values and not because they….im just gonna say it…. made me horny. In fact sex was on and off for 4 years due also to the disability, and some miscomunication regarding some other elements which needed better communication and understanding. What happens? We decide it is time to start thinking of marriage, we sat down and spoke about what we wanted from a marriage. We talked it through and agreed, that it was important for us have a family, my role as a mother, his role as a provider, respect, communincation and that marriage was ONCE and for ever, no turning back. We also had to tackle ss, we said “we need to improve our intimacy” and through honest vulnerabily and talk, we found breakthrough…..now we have a much healthier intimacy and sex life. Let’s say, the puzzle is coming togther – we are finishing our studied with the intent to be married when we are done. But then I found Christ. I am so happy to have found the Lord, I am becoming a better person and a better partner thanks to being born again. However my partner is a Christian but like most christians nowaday basically does not think of the implication of things such as sex before marriage – I also never had an issue with it. I know there are some verses here and there which speak of “adultery” and “fornication” in respects to social norms of 2000 years ago, where marriage was basically a father agreeing to “giving away” his daughter to be mastered by another man. My father knows my boyfriend and likes him well, our families approve – we share a life and responsabilities and uphold eachother. We are monogamous and repsectful. I HAVE given it to Jesus and may he guide us and bless us and I have brought it to him and vowed to him I approach this relationship as if I had signed a paper with some potential pedophile priest infront of me. Im sorry about the bittnerness there. But commitment, monogamy, hard work, making love, loving, understanding, endurance, patience, teamwork are what makes a marriage. Should I still feel guilty?

    • Katerina, thanks for sharing and for your important questions. It sounds like you’re growing, that your current relationship is one of the healthiest you’ve been in, and that your newfound relationship with Christ is bringing life and healing. I celebrate all those things with you!

      It also sounds like you’re wrestling with the Christian understanding that God wants men and women to reserve sex for marriage. It can be difficult, but just as our spiritual union with God comes as we enter into covenant relationship with Him, so the “one flesh” union between husband and wife is designed to follow the same pattern. You obviously don’t have to follow Him there, and I don’t know that “feeling guilty” is what He wants either. But I do know God wants what’s best for you, His dear daughter. And I know He wants to care for you in the tender places of your life if you’ll let Him, including those places where what He’s asking of you doesn’t seem to make sense. .

      With all that said, if you’d find it helpful to meet with one of the women on our team as you wrestle with these questions and continue to grow in Christ, please let us know. God bless you, dear sister.

  • I believe in God as our creator and I believe in Jesus as our salvation and I also believe in the existence of the Devil, the one who temps us to do evil things to try to make
    us hate the people around us.  However I don’t believe in the writings of the Bible I believe that this is a book that was written by men that wanted control in a time where people had a lot of very Superstitious beliefs and it was an easy way to control the people.  I do believe that if two people have consented to have sex with one another, or a man or women decide to masterbate in the privacy of their own home I truly believe that you won’t burn in hell and no one could truly argue this because they can’t say for sure if I am right or wrong.  it’s what we believe.  If you are good to the people around you and you are charitable, if you work hard in your life and love your family and believe in the lord God and have Faith and pray to him as your advisor for his grace and wisdom, then in life God will be there for you.  I believe it’s that easy we were taught that it needs to be harder than that but it’s not.  Just love God Jesus and your fellow Human and God will love you. 

  • I was in slaves in lust most of my life , at first it was fun , I thought I was a man when I conquered girls, as time went by I realized that I was empty, after my one night stand I felt lonely, lust had a hold on me! I got to the point where I was never satisfied, I asked God for help, when I did I felt a war going on inside my head and voices trying to convince me it was alright and I could give in, I literally had physical pain and gave in a few time but I remembered that just because I slipped didn’t mean it was to late to start again. The drive to have sex was insanely strong and I thought at times I could not take it but I prayed to God to Strengthen me and he did, I have abstained from sex and masterbation for over two year, the disuse is still there and hits me pretty strong at time but I continue to ask God for strength every time and he gives it to me, I look at the temptation as the enemy that want to pull me from Gods Grace, I have gained mental stability from refraining from sex. Paul said I die daily, I know what he meant, he said deaden your body part. Life is not easy but don’t give up, if you fall down get up and try again, put on the full armor of God, we are under attack 24/7.

By Josh Glaser

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