Cameron, a listener from London writes in, Dear Pastor John, to what extent is the goodness

in glory of the Christian's understanding of human sexuality spiritually discerned?

Animals have instincts that cause them to mate and reproduce, and viewed from a God-centered

perspective. That is amazing. That's an amazing thing. It reveals the glory of God, the creator.

How do they know how to do that? How do those birds know to display their feathers in just that

way to attract her at just that time? How does that frog know to change the tone of her

chirup chirup? It's so that the species goes on. The earth is full of the wonders of God in wisdom.

You have made them all. We watch, and with the eyes awakened to God, we see the glory of God in

all of it, all that sexuality. So it is with human sexuality. We have instincts and desires and

understandings that cause us to make love and reproduce the race, but without eyes to see the

goodness in the glory of God in our sexuality, we are more like animals than we are like God,

and that's not what God calls us to be or to do. So when you read what the Bible has to say

about sex, you are thrown into a world of divine glory. And if we don't have eyes to see, we'll miss

it. So when Cameron asks to what extent is the goodness and the glory of the Christian understanding

of human sexuality spiritually discerned, my answer is all of it. Totally. It is totally

discerned spiritually without spiritual life, without the awakening of our spirit by the spirit of

God, the reality of God, the glory of God in all things. We may have intense feelings and poetic

thoughts about sex even far about the animals, but we will never see the goodness and the glory

that God reveals of himself in and through our sexuality without spiritual discernment.

That is, without the awakening and the transforming work of the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ,

we only rise to the level of nature and never see in it the glory of God. So let me illustrate

with a few passages. 1 Corinthians 214, the natural person does not accept the things of the

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