Let’s Stand Proud for Purity on Feb. 14 by LIBERTY COUNSEL for Charisma News
In today’s culture, where young people are bombarded with messages that encourage promiscuity, Liberty Counsel is encouraging students to take a public stand for purity. The 19th annual Day of Purity is a campaign that encourages students to wear white on Feb.14 to publicly promote abstinence and inspire other young people to save sexual intimacy for marriage.
The Day of Purity is based on First Timothy 4:12 (NIV): “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.” Participants are also encouraged to wear a special LIVEPURE wristband on that day and throughout the year.
While Hollywood and the media may encourage sexual activity without limits, practicing purity before marriage has spiritual, physical, emotional and social benefits.
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Regarding the spiritual benefits of purity, the Bible is clear that to have a pure conscience before God, people must “flee from sexual immorality” (1 Cor. 6:18a) because “no other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does” (1 Cor. 6:18b, NLT).
The physical benefits of abstinence before marriage include preventing diseases, pregnancies and even abortions. On average, young people in the United States havesexual intercourse for the first time at about age 17, but do not marry until their mid-20s. An estimated 19 million new cases of sexually transmitted diseases are diagnosed each year in the United States—almost half of them among young people ages 15 to 24. In 2019, unmarried women accounted for 86% of all abortions. Young women under 15 years obtained .2% of all 2019 abortions, women 15–19 years accounted for approximately 8.5% and women 20-24 accounted for 27.7%.
As for the emotional and social benefits of purity, research has shown that couples who delay sexual intimacy until their wedding night have more stability in their marriages and are less likely to divorce than couples who have premarital sex. In fact, as cited inThe Handbook of Sexuality in Close Relationships, when love and commitment is expressed after a couple becomes sexually involved, “the experience is perceived as a negative turning point, evoking regret, uncertainty, discomfort and prompting apologies.”
