Is Your Abstinence Program Working for You?

“Abstinence” means a voluntary restraint from indulging a desire or appetite or pleasure. That said, these days when you hear “abstinence” you immediately think of controversial sex education programs. Opponents of Abstinence Programs say they don’t work. And in part, they are right.

Prohibitions, by themselves, do not work. When Peter and Paul urged abstinence—“abstain from fleshly lusts,” “from fornication,” “from... evil,” (1 Pet. 2:11; 1 Thess. 5:22; 4:3), it was always in the context of displacement. That is to say, you can’t tell someone to stop doing something ‘wrong’ without telling them to start doing something ‘right,’ parallel to Paul’s repeated admonition to “put off the old self” and “put on the new self.” And the “right” thing has to be so much better than the thing you are abstaining from that the abstaining is not only possible but preferable, and in fact, far superior.

But there is another reason prohibitions don’t work: something in our flesh called “entitlement.” We think we are entitled to indulge our selves—“lovers of pleasure” (2 Tim. 3:4). As a cross-carrying Christian, you know you are no longer entitled to indulge your selfish pleasure. But do you know that God has a new entitlement program for you!? You are entitled to all the benefits of your new birthright: “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Ro. 14:17). You are entitled His divine power [for] everything pertaining to life and godliness, to His magnificent promises, and to become a partaker of His divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:3-4). If you are struggling with your “abstinence program” (whatever it is you are trying to abstain from), is it because you have not replaced it with God's “entitlement program?”

Considering the importance of ‘displacement,’ look at Paul words: “Run from anything that stimulates youthful lust [instead] follow anything that makes you want to do right. Pursue faith and love and peace, and enjoy the companionship of those who call on the Lord with pure hearts” (2 Tim. 2:22 NLT).