Single, Saved and Having Sex

Most of us smart, beautiful and single women after God’s Heart struggle with the same sin, sex. Sistahs, if you are having issues with staying from "between the sheets," I must recommend this book, Single, Saved and Having Sex by Ty Adams. She gives it to you straight up and doesn’t give the option of a chaser. Leave it to a woman who has struggled with sex since the age of 7, when she was molested.
Adams talks openly and boldly about her struggles with sex addiction, being molested as a child, her relationship with another woman and countless men she allowed into her life and into her bed, only to leave her with a broken spirit.

From watching porn, to masturbating, same-sex relationships, and more, Ty Adams uses her own personal experiences, scriptural references and references to several of Dr. Miles Monroe’s books to illustrate God’s divine purpose for our lives through all of our “mess.” She speaks of how we as women must take accountability for our actions, learn to trust in God in all that we do, learn who we are and first fall in love with God, our real Man, our real “Boo.”

As a special treat, I’ve included an excerpt from Dr. Ty Adams’ book, Single Saved and Having Sex. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter One

Single, Saved, and Having Sex You're addicted to thrills? What an empty life! The pursuit of pleasure is never satisfied. -Proverbs 21:17 (The Message)

The sexual revolution of the 1960s cast us into an age of low moral values and promiscuity. If you are a single woman or man, there is pressure-from society, television, music, advertising, and your peers-to become a sexual being.

But now, more than ever, people of all ages are feeling less emotionally attached, more vacant and empty-even if their beds are filled with lovers and their social lives sizzle. And most of these people call themselves Christians. In fact, it has been estimated that 70 percent of all unmarried Christians are saved and having sex.

The quest for intimacy and fulfillment is at an all-time high. Over the past year, just about every magazine on the newsstands featured articles on sex and relationships, with titles like "When Should You Give It Up?" "How Do I Please My Man Sexually?" and "How Do I Heal from a Broken Relationship?" We are constantly bombarded with one message: Sex is all that matters, and it had better be good.

Single-dating shows are among the highest-rated programs on TV. These shows are comprised of single men and women who have the opportunity to date twenty people in onenight or to compete for a relationship with a rich man or woman, one whom they barely get to know.

E-mail is full of pop-ups inviting you to go to a dating site, and online dating services and chat rooms are swamped with people searching for a physical relationship or a way to hook up with a member of the opposite sex as quickly and painlessly as possible. Yet a large percentage of single people who struggle with relationships and are having sex either believe in or love God, this same God who approves of sex only if you are married. Does this mean that you, a single person, can believe in or love God the way He requires us to love Him and still have sex?

God created and designed you to have wholeness in every area of your life. We have physical, emotional, social, mental, and spiritual needs to be fulfilled. When we have a need for intimacy, we quickly respond physically. That's because we live in a microwave, fast-food-mentality age; we want instant gratification. We want it our way, right away; we want it fast, and it better be satisfying.

We've tried to acquire intimacy in an instant-in a six second orgasm, a temporary relief that takes you back down to where you were before you took off your clothes. But once the morning-after syndrome sets in, you find that you didn't get what you were seeking. Then, even though you realize that your needs weren't met, you continue your quest for fulfillment through physical means, while your spiritual and mental departments hang in limbo.

Now failed relationships and sexual partnerships become the norm. You move on to another relationship, it doesn't work out, you move on to another. Like an addict, you are consumed with achieving another climax. This is known as "the thrill is gone" syndrome-when the immediate gratification thrills and pleasures of sex leave, you move right on to the next bed. Like me, some of you, after a few rock-bottom relationships, begin to work on the other departments. You start praying, may even start going to church, but you continue to get intimacy physically. You give some of yourself over to God, but you find yourself living a double life. This is commonly known as "your body's here with me, but your mind is on the other side of town."

You will soon realize that the cost of trying to meet your quest for intimacy by physical means is beginning to add up. Or have you not counted up the cost? For singles, sex is never free. What price would you put on a damaged or wounded heart? How much does AIDS or HIV cost? How about a life with no peace: What kind of price tag would you put on that? How much does it cost to kill a baby? Or what's the price on a bankrupt spirit? Oh, here's one: How much does it cost to go to hell?

The question remains: Is it possible to believe in or love God and still have sex? I don't know if that's really the question, because I can guess that many of you don't love sex to the point that you would be willing to pay the high cost for it. Especially the cost of being separated eternally from the God you love. Yet you somehow continue to pray, go to church, and proclaim the name of Jesus while you engage in sexual activities. I know exactly what that's like-to love God but find it hard to please Him because of wild, rampant sexual desires that need to be fulfilled. I know what it's like to want to live right and be held at the same time.

Many of you believe that your sexual exploits will be excused by a loving and understanding God. Some of you, on the other hand, believe that eventually you'll get things under control when you get the guts to leave the relationship or your sexual partner, to fully live for God. Many of you have left the church because your struggle with sex outweighed your capacity to live right for God; others of you are still going to church faithfully while covering up the fact that you are having sex. No matter what your case, I want to share something with you that Dr. Mike Murdock often states: "Struggle is proof that you have not yet been conquered." My prayer is that those of you who find yourself in the struggle will finally obtain the answers that you need in order to overcome and walk away free. My prayer is that you will become single, saved, and not having sex.

But I know this isn't going to be easy. Why? Because everywhere we look, it's sex, sex, sex, sex, sex-get as much as you can, when you can, with whomever you can. This is what's depicted on TV and radio. Turn on the TV, and even a toothpaste commercial will have two people hugging and kissing. You can't look at a shampoo commercial without a sexual connotation in it. Now, what does washing your hair have to do with sexual pleasure? And let's not even talk about the movies and music. There is no "maybe that's what they're talking about" hidden meaning. And there are no hidden messages; they're flat-out X-rated!

You have so many opinions and different beliefs about sex coming at you. You grow up trained to think and believe a certain way about sex. You're not a man unless you have a few women; you need to have all the flavors, and if they don't satisfy you, "handle yourself." If you're a virgin, something has to be wrong; you must be gay. As for a woman, you need a man to complete you and you have to outdo the other women he's been with in bed in order to keep him. Sound familiar? Here you are, living your entire life with these man-made ideas of how sex should be-with whomever we want-then you get "saved." This is where a major problem lies. The spirit of a man is changed, but his mind isn't changed. This is one reason why such a high rate of single folks in the church are having active sex lives. We come to the Lord with this going-out-in-the-world backward thinking, with the mind-set of not changing the way we live our lives and not turning away from these beliefs that have been embedded in us. We have a new spirit, but we use the same mind. If that's not enough, we go back to the same resources for advice when our quest falls apart.

Okay, let me give you a mental picture. I was driving a brown 1981 Cutlass. It was dented in the rear, and gaseous fumes were coming out of the tailpipe. I myself was sharp, looking good, but when I got out of the car I would smell like a walking exhaust system. When the car broke down, I wouldn't take it to the dealer and get it fixed. I would take the car, dents and all, to what we call alley mechanics (mechanics who fix cars in backyards or in front of their houses).

Now picture a Mercedes-Benz 700 Series, white leather interior, no fumes. It needs to be serviced (notice, I said serviced). Would you take it to an alley mechanic? Oh, no! You would take it to the dealer, the manufacturer. That's the same thing with you. You are no longer a broken-down, barely making-it '81 Cutlass with poisonous fumes. You are in a new class, a new series of your life, and you can't go and get quick fixes from unskilled folks giving you experimental advice. You need to go to the Manufacturer.

God, your Manufacturer, created you and He created sex. Why would you go to the alley sex mechanic for help? Since God created sex and He created you, He knows your hang-ups, your shortcomings, faults, desires, why you respond and act a certain way, and He has the solution should you malfunction. If you are having issues or struggling with something that He created, by all means He should be the one that you go to for help. Remember this definition: Sexual sin means of or involving sex, the two sexes, or the sexual organs in a willful violation of a religious or moral principle; sexuality unrestrained by morality; any wrong or evil act involving sex, the two sexes, or the sexual organs.

There are quite a few of you who believe that sexual intercourse occurs only when a man enters into a woman's vagina. But sexual intercourse is defined as an intimate physical relationship, especially between a man and a woman, involving any use of the sexual organs. This means that even if a man does not enter a woman but has physical contact with the woman with any of the sexual organs, he is having sexual intercourse; it's the course or path of entering into sex.

Let me translate this for you further: It also means that foreplay (the acts that happen before a man enters into a woman) is considered sexual intercourse-the course or path of entering into sex. Examples of foreplay are heavy petting, fondling, and, yes, even tongue kissing. It also includes masturbation-the stimulation of one's own or another's genitals. Masturbation has a downward spiraling effect because it is the act of living out your past on yourself. You are responding to twisted sexual perversions that have developed in your mind that cause you to believe that gratification by any means will fulfill a desire or need. Masturbation breeds confusion and leaves you with a greater degree of discontent and emptiness.

Pornography is sexual immorality or fornication. It is any literature, art, magazine, movie, music, or photograph of erotic or sexual acts intended to excite prurient feelings or lustful thoughts. Those of you who think you do not engage in pornography because you don't have X-rated videos or magazines should check that definition closely. Illicit, erotic, X-rated, or vulgar movies or music are also forms of pornography. You know, the kind of music that talks about your body parts and what he/she is going to do with those body parts-yeah, that's pornography.

Oh, did I fail to mention oral and anal sex? Now, the fact that some of you think that oral sex or anal sex is not sex kind of confuses me. "Sex" in the terms alone gives you a big clue and indicates that they are sex. If you are using the sexual organs, that is considered sexual intercourse. So putting your mouth on a sexual organ is sexual sin. The anus was placed on your body to defecate or remove waste, not to put waste in it. Waste is anything barren, unproductive, unfruitful.

To engage in anal sex is a wasteful act; you are not to go there. Listen, single man or woman, if you have either oral or anal sex, you are considered a sodomite, which comes from the word "sodomy." Sodomy is defined as the unnatural, especially anal or oral, use of copulation/sexual intercourse.

Then the Lord rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of the heavens. He overthrew, destroyed, and ended those cities, and all the valley and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. (Genesis 19:24-25 [Amplified])

God destroyed the entire cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because of their sinful, sexual perversion. I can see some of your faces now: "Oh, blessed Jesus, I can't believe she put this in this book. I can't believe she went there. She is talking so openly about it." I believe we've been sugarcoating this for far too long. And, as quiet as it's kept, some of you do talk about it and actually do these things, then cover it up. Talking about covering up, there are a lot of undercover Christians literally under the covers, and the only way a lot of you are going to be delivered and set free is to go under the covers where you are and grab yourselves out. So let's uncover.

Now, this discussion would not be complete if we didn't talk about homosexuality, which we'll get into more fully later. Homosexuality is defined as exhibiting sexual desires toward a person of one's own sex. I had to clarify and define that because we often look at sin in levels and degrees, as if one carries more weight than the other. "I don't watch pornography," but you listen to it on your favorite radio station.

"I don't sleep around, I'm celibate," but you take care of yourself by masturbating. You might even have the audacity to turn your nose up at someone who comes into your church and appears to be a homosexual, but you're headed right for the hotel with someone you are not married to before the pastor can even give the benediction.

Surprisingly, I've had some people tell me, both men and women, that they are not in sexual sin because whenever they get with their bed partners, they don't actually engage in penetration, but they'll have oral sex with one another. Whichever way you put it, sexual penetration, masturbation, foreplay, tongue kissing, homosexuality, oral sex, anal sex, and pornography are all considered sexual intercourse; they are all sexual sins and are considered fornication. Fornication is voluntary sexual intercourse between two unmarried persons or two persons not married to each other.

For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication. (1 Thessalonians 4:3 [KJV])

Picture a big, fat, pink pig running around in a muddy pigsty eating everything you throw at it. You get close to the pigsty and you notice that this pig has red lipstick on, high heeled shoes, and a ring in its nose. Do you now look at the pig and say, "You are so cute"? No, you don't. The filth she's running in and her habit of eating everything that's foul overpower the lipstick and the gold ring. She's not cute at all. She's a filthy pig. Even Scripture tells us:

Like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful face on an empty head. (The Message)

When King Solomon spoke this message to the women in his day about their indiscreet lifestyle, he had to compare their lifestyle to what they believed was the filthiest thing ever, which at that time was a swine. You wouldn't be caught dead eating a pork chop or a slice of bacon. Jewelry and gold nose rings were the hippest things happening. When you saw a nose ring on a woman, it was absolutely beautiful! King Solomon was basically saying to the women, "You can't dress up ugly. You can't dress up in mess and filth."

He compared a foul pig with a gold ring in its nose to a drop-dead-gorgeous woman who was not tactful, who lacked judgment and the ability to make quality decisions in her life. Just as a gold ring couldn't cover up a filthy pig, neither could a woman's pretty face and shapely body cover up or cancel out the fact that she lacked moral discretion. A pretty face without discretion is useless and has no worth or value. Men, take notes. The last thing you want or need is a woman who lacks the ability to exercise good judgment or tact. The Word of God tells us, "He that finds a wife, finds a good thing" (Proverbs 18:22). Ladies, you are not considered "a good thing" if you do not possess or exercise good judgment. We define "good" as morally excellent, proper, fitting, well behaved, honorable or worthy, sound or valid, competent, morally righteous, not spoiled or tainted. Does that define you?

You can't be a good thing if you lack good judgment, and you can't possess good judgment without having "the goods," which means without being tainted. You must also be morally excellent. The only way that you possess the goods is through goodness, as indicated in The Message translation of Psalms 119:68: "You are good, and the source of good; train me in your goodness." You need to understand that you-all of you-already possess the goods. You just have not yet tapped into them. It means nothing to possess the goods if you don't exercise or walk in what you already are or maintain good judgment in your everyday life or in your practical affairs, you have to give God the consent in your affairs.

(Continues...)



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Excerpted from Single, Saved, and Having Sex by Ty Adams Copyright © 2006 by Ty Adams. Excerpted by permission.

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