This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live . . .
-Deuteronomy 30:19
I used to be a substance abuse counselor. We frequently had training on HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention.
I remember a discussion we had about the means of HIV transmission. One of the lecturers said something that struck me to the core. HIV, she said, was transmitted through fluids we associate with life (blood and sexual fluids). “Whoa!” I thought to myself. Intentionally or not, she had said something remarkably profound—so profound that I remember it years later.
I had never thought about it this way—maybe you haven’t either. We’ve taken that which should create life and used it to cause death!
Consider these HIV/AIDS statistics:
*Every 24 hours, 8,000 people die of AIDS.
*There are now over 30 million people infected with HIV.
*More than 25 million people have died from AIDS since the disease’s discovery.
*Africa has over 11 million “AIDS orphans”—children whose parents died due to the disease.
This tragic reality doesn’t stop with HIV. Just consider the silent holocaust of abortion—the millions of children who are murdered before they are allowed to take their first breath:
*Approximately 42 million abortions happen every year worldwide—115,000 per day.
*Over 400,000 abortions per year happen in the Philippines.
*In the United States, approximately 43% of all women will have at least one abortion before age 45.
*Repeat abortions by teenage girls have gone up almost 70% since 1991.
Like the Apostle Paul said, we “invent ways of doing evil” (Romans 1:30).
All of this because we won’t obey God. All of this because we’ve decided we’re smarter than He is when it comes to the gift of sex.
Beloved readers, this is why sexual purity is so important. It isn’t just a matter of guilt, shame or emotional baggage—it’s a matter of life and death! When we lose respect for the process that creates life, we inevitably lose respect for life itself.
Choose purity. Choose Life.
