Insightful Musings on the New Testament
by
Ray Sparre, NU class of '67

Ray has a wealth of experience as a Husband, Father, Pastor, Missionary, and student of the Word. He believes and practices his faith where the rubber meets the road. You'll find his writings to be practical, insightful, and grounded in a truly Christ-centered world view.

Below are links to a printable daily Bible reading guide which Ray is following, and an archive of all his daily devotional writings for 2010.

|  Daily Reading Guide  |  2010 Devotion Archives  |
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14 July 10
                Dear ones.
                The day yesterday was simply too full…including a trip to the coast with family.  There is more family stuff in the works today. In fact, we’re supposed to be out the door about NOW to go to lunch at Lorna and Ray Wilson’s place.
                Be good.  God bless.  Love, Dad/Ray


14 July 2010
Passage: 1 Corinthians 7
Focus: “…so that Satan will not tempt you…”  1 Corinthians 7:5.
                I don’t lay any claim to being some kind of professional teacher or counselor relative to marriage and sexual relationships.  And I know that most of us are not very aggressive in opening this topic, being rather bound by the traditional silence that it was given in our past.  But the prevalence of problems in this area and the clarity of scriptural instruction go together to make me feel a kind of urgency that we as parents, teachers, and leaders be as forthright as the scriptures are on the subject.
                Paul gives some instruction in this chapter that, in some cases, is hard to understand.  But no one can condemn him for being ignorant or insensitive to the reality of human sexual passion.  Even within the exclusive confines of marriage, there are still certain dangers that Paul wants his people to understand.  (See 2 Cor. 2:11)  So he instructs married believers to constantly recognize their oneness with each other and that their married bodies are designed and ordained for the mutual satisfaction and fulfillment of each other.  The “act of marriage” is intended to be an ongoing pattern of experience for normal married couples that should only be set aside temporarily for the purpose of focused spiritual pursuits.  But even in that case, Paul cautions, it must be done with care and by mutual agreement—SO THAT SATAN WILL NOT TEMPT YOU.  The implied lesson of the presentation is that good satisfying sexual participation in marriage is actually a form of effective spiritual warfare that helps protect one from the kind of temptation that leads to sexual failure—a favorite objective of Satan.
                Let’s make no mistakes in our basic understanding of this basic area of life.  Too many do—and pay big consequences.  God is the giver, designer, and creator of marriage and its special one-flesh feature.  Satan is the stealer, twister, and destroyer of the same.  Your only protection against the deceptive devices of the enemy is to hide God’s Word in your heart and live by its principles—SO THAT SATAN WILL NOT TEMPT YOU.  Because if you don’t, he will.
 
                “Temptation usually comes in through a door that has deliberately been left open.”