Through my work in churches with young people I get asked a lot of if it’s ok to masturbate and while its an easy question to answer not many people have spent some time to explain their reasoning. Without going into a full on discussion or throwing around theological thoughts or scriptures, I want to focus the response not just about the physical act of masturbation but also tackle the idea of “masturbation is fine” and really try to explain it.
In my honest opinion masturbation isn’t going to be good for you spiritually and emotionally. When I tell most people that I in no way believe masturbation is good for you I normally get either one of the following responses:
- “There isn’t any scripture in the bible that says I can’t”
- “It’s ok, as long as i don’t think about anyone”
A lot of the time when these questions are asked there’s always some kind of selfish motive behind these. For many years before I was married I had the mind set that it’s totally fine to expect my future wife to meet my needs sexually but about two years I started to grow out of this selfish thinking. As Christians or as a community our focus has to be serving, the moment we move away from that we are actually saying that we are more important which is loosely translated as “idolatry” which basically means to take their eyes off God and give the same authority to something else which isn’t God, such as drugs, sex, movies, celebs and even Church. I don’t know about you but as a youth worker i’d rather have a whole bunch of men and women who are focused on serving God more than people focused on themselves than others and this issue of masturbation is one of the things that seems to get in the way of this. This is no different in our relationships, If we are in relationship to get the most we can out of it and to get our needs met than I will put my head on the line and say that you shouldn’t expect that relationship to last long. We should be focused on putting God first in all aspects of our lives including out sexual relationships (once married of course).
I know, some of you understand exactly what I’m talking about and want to deal with this but you really don’t know where to start when it comes to dealing this issue. Many of you have been struggling with this issue for a long time and don’t know what to do about it or how to stop doing it because it’s become such a big part of your routine and in a sense you’ve become addicted to this, I want you to know that you can deal with this.
XXXChurch has just launched a Male only teen X3 Online group. This group is aimed at you guys who need help to understand why you do what you do and also help you to the road of sexual purity. If you’d like any more information than please head over to the following page.