This month on LifeTeen.com we’re writing all about love. We want to figure out the difference between luv, something that’s shallow, and love, the thing that is deep and profound. So in this 5-part blog series, I’m going to talk about the things that at times might look and feel like love, but are in fact just a counterfeit. Here’s what I’ll cover:

• Part I: Lust
• Part II: Infatuation
• Part III: Obsession
• Part IV: Co-dependence
• Part V: Abuse and Manipulation

You’ll want to read this series because you owe it to yourself to only accept the real deal. Today, let’s talk about lust…

Love Counterfeit: Lust

What do Lil Wayne, Katy, and Usher have in common? They became top artists by using lust to sell their music.

What it is. Lust is an intense appetite for sex. Lust is acted out in many ways: pornography, prostitution, one-night stands.

Where you see it. Lust is very common today because people can make a lot of money by selling stuff with lust: cars, movies, video games, clothes, cologne. Lust is central to most modern club music. Consider the lyrics to Usher’s song “OMG”:

“I fell in love with shawty when I seen her on the dance floor. She was dancing sexy, pop, pop, popping, dropping, dropping low. Never ever has a lady hit me on the first sight. This was something special; this was just like dynamite.”

Where else you’ve heard about lust: Ludacris “How Low,” Katy Perry “California Gurls,” and Lil Wayne “Lollipop.”

Why people accept lust. Many young guys believe that lust defines their masculinity. To say it in another way, they think it makes them cool to be obsessed with sex. Because a guy’s lust can be so intense, a girl can feel special whenever a guy directs that intensity at her. Unfortunately, the truth is soon revealed when he moves on and lusts after someone else. Lust is never about love.

Why lust is a counterfeit of love. Lust excludes everything in a relationship that isn’t about sex. Think about that. There’s nothing about caring for each other, helping one another, encouraging one another. There’s nothing about sharing a fun life together. Lust leaves you empty and confused. Lust is indeed the opposite of love.

Pope John Paul spoke often about lust because he understood how toxic it could be to relationships and society. Consider this quote:

“Love for a person must consist in affirmation that the person has a value higher than that of an object for consumption or use… It is not enough to long for a person as a good for oneself, one must also, and above all, long for that person’s good.” ~ Pope John Paul II (underline added for emphasis)

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Dealing with lust can be very difficult, especially for young people today. But there is hope! In Matthew 5:27-28, Jesus talks about how to deal with lust:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

What this means is that it’s with our EYES that lust first begins. If you keep control of your eyes, you can eliminate lust before it gets stuck in your head and heart. Pray often to overcome lust so that you can love others more purely.

Tomorrow: Infatuation >>

The Flesh May Be Weak, but the Spirit Is Willing

Crash diets don’t work. If a woman loves donuts or a man loves buffalo wings, they have the choice: control their flesh or schedule the angioplasty. Simply eliminating the temptation isn’t enough; the body must be retrained and self-control must come into play. The same is true in the battle for purity.

You are a sexual being. Everyone is. Your body was created with sexual desires for a reason, a purpose. However, the fact that you were created with such desires doesn’t mean they should dictate your life. Sex, in and of itself, is not the goal of life. It should not be the motivating factor. Sex is not a mere act. Sex is not power.

Sex is a language, gifted to us by God, that speaks of commitment and self-sacrifice. Sex is an expression of unconditional love, a unifying experience for a man and woman who have offered their lives to one another and to God.

Sex outside of the bonds (that’s right, the bonds) of holy matrimony is contrary to God’s will for several reasons.

Sex is procreative; it is the means through which God brings a child into the world. At its most fundamental level, that is what sex is all about. As the Church teaches, every child must be brought into the world through an act of love on the part of the parents. In this, conception models God’s own creative nature. God forbids us from conceiving a child in any other way—through any artificial means of conception.

Sex is also unitive, it is a binding act that unites not just the bodies but the hearts and spirits of the couple to one another and to God. Sex creates a permanent bond of love meant to foster the unity of the couple. That unity helps create an environment congenial to the raising of children. Premarital sex is sex without permanent commitment and nearly always opposed to the creation of a child.

In marriage, the couple confirms their openness to motherhood and fatherhood and the purpose of the sexual act is fully realized. In Catholic wedding vows the man and woman declare that they will willingly and joyfully accept children. In achieving this end, artificial contraception is not an option, although a couple may space their children using the method commonly known as natural family planning.

The couple also states that they will remain together as long as they both shall live. This permanent commitment transcends the graying, wrinkling, sagging and slowing down that come with time. This vow affirms that the attraction shared between husband and wife exists beyond the borders of sexual satisfaction: “No matter what happens,” the couple is saying to each other, “you are more than a body, and sex is more than an act. I am in this forever.”

If you are sexually active and not married to your partner, reconsider the language that you are using. It’s God’s language, and it is not open to adaptation or interpretation to suit your situation.

What’s the Use?

Sex in contemporary society is primarily about use (pleasure) rather than purpose (unity, procreation, pleasure). Where has this left us as a society?

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Pornography ensnares both men and women and families suffer. Divorces proliferate, leaving millions of young people leery of entering marriage themselves when they grow up. Sexually transmitted diseases leave innumerable women unable to bear children. Mothers are left to raise children alone and women are abandoned as they age because their men used a “forever” language with a “for now” intention. Countless men and women are embittered after having been thrown aside when they have fulfilled their “use.”

Consider this: when singles hook up or married people stray, sex is usually the goal, although we can fool ourselves about it, and often do. But what usually happens after the sexual thrill fades? Heartbreak and shattered lives. This should tell us something, but it doesn’t seem to. Too many people leave one illicit sexual situation and fall right into another.

When sex becomes the goal, it has lost something intrinsic—its spirit of self-sacrifice, of total and permanent commitment. In other words, it loses all that makes it sacred. When it is separated from its God-designed purpose, it becomes an act of using someone—or using oneself in the act of masturbation. And let’s be truthful: politicians might argue that oral sex is not actual sex but anyone who is honest knows that’s ridiculous.

If you are a young adult who wants to avoid the heartbreak that ultimately accompanies premarital sex, choose chastity now. The self-control, spirit of self-sacrifice and understanding of love that you acquire will also help to protect you from divorce when you do marry. Chastity now and a right understanding of the nature of love and commitment will help give you the inner strength to make it through the difficult times that come in all marriages.

What are we offering and taking, giving and using? If we want to advance to that next level of life, men and women need to take a look at it all. Otherwise, the “game” is over. Of course, if sex were just a game there would be no consequence, no emptiness, no pain and no sin.

A: Okay let me begin with the good news, sex is not wrong…if done in the union of a husband and wife in the Sacrament of Marriage. However, if this sex is happening between two people who are married, but to different people, then this is adultery (and that would be bad) or if this sexual experience is happening between two people who are not married at all, then this is what we call Fornication. And now let us open our Bibles to the following references, shall we…

My dear brothers and sisters we read in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians (6:9) “Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the Kingdom of God?” And who are the “unjust” persons? The list begins with the “fornicators.” So then we are to avoid immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the immoral person sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore glorify God in your body (6: 18-20).”

Or again he writes in his Letter to the Romans (6:12), “Therefore, sin must not rule over our mortal bodies so that you obey their desires.” And in the Letter to the Colossians (3:5), “Put to death, the, parts of you that are earthly; immorality, passion, evil desire, and the greed that is adultery.” Even the Gospels speak about it in Matthew (15:18-19) and Mark (7:21-23).

This concludes today’s brief look at the scriptural teachings on fornication and the sexual unchaste…now please open your songbooks and let us join in singing “Kumbiah.”

I would encourage you to read these passages on your own and even look up the references your Bible may have to similar passages. If you want to look up the definition of fornication in the Catechism of the Catholic Church it can be found in paragraph 2353.

A: Thanks for your honesty in this matter and it is a truly serious matter indeed. You made a decision that will change everything in your life. I don’t mean to sound too melodramatic, but you now stand at a crossroads. You mentioned a fear of going to hell, well, I’d like to think that our all-loving God would not judge damnation because of one sinful act, still the crossroads have been reached. The Book of Deuteronomy says, “I’ll have set before you life and death, the blessing and a curse. Choose life, then, that you may live.” (30:19). Don’t let this sin become a part of your everyday life. If you truly want to be a person of God, and if you want your relationship with your boyfriend to be something holy, don’t let sinful acts, such as having sex before marriage, keep you from the life Christ wants you to live in Him.

It is serious what you have done, but don’t live in guilt…go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and heal this wound on your soul. Then find the time to talk to someone you trust, a priest, a nun or a youth minister and let them help you find a way to keep yourself from falling back into this kind of pattern in your relationship. I’ll be praying for you, and remember…choose life!