As a young person, the slogan for purity was “Just Say No.” Which I suppose was good as far it went. The problem was that it simply didn’t go far enough. Purity is much more than simply avoiding sex outside of marriage. If we are going to pursue purity, we must guard our eyes, guard our minds, and guard our actions.

Guard Our Eyes – We need to guard our eyes from those things which would encourage impure or lustful thoughts (Job 31:1, Psalm 101:3). This of course includes pornography of all kinds. But it also includes certain movies, TV shows, pictures on Facebook, magazines, and books. It includes how we look at another person; we must not look at them with lustful intent (Matthew 5:28). Indeed to drive this point home, Jesus goes on to speak of gouging out our eyes. His point is not that we should injure ourselves, but that we must get serious about this. We need to guard our eyes.

Guard Your Mind – In Colossians 3:5, Paul tells us to put to death sexual immorality, and then works backwards showing how one gets to that point. And it begins with covetousness – desiring to possess that other person to use them for our own gratification. His point is clear – unless you are married to that person, he/she doesn’t belong to you, so don’t think (and then act) as if he/she does. Another root of sexual immorality that he points to is evil desire or lust. We are not to think of others with sexual desire. We are not to fantasize about others in this way. We need to guard our minds.

Guard Our Actions – Paul continues in Colossians 3:5 from coveting and evil desire to passion and impurity. Those are actions that flow from evil desire and lead to sexual immorality. So the Bible is not just teaching us to say no to sexual immorality, but also to those actions that would lead to sexual immorality. Song of Solomon warns us not to awaken love until it pleases (2:7, 3.5). That is, don’t do those things that will awaken desires within you that you can’t lawfully fulfill outside of marriage. We need to guard our actions.

Sexual immorality doesn’t just happen. It occurs when we fail to guard our eyes, guard our minds, and guard our actions. So let’s be on our guard. Pursue purity.