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Written by Matthew West, Jason Houser, Kenny Greenberg
Sung by Matthew West
Everybody's doing it, Everybody's going out tonight
All your friends are feeling it, Whatever it is that makes you feel all right
Everybody knows that anything goes
Everything you want is just across the line
Step into the flow, go all the way tonight
CHORUS:
Don't believe the lie,
Don't buy in to what they sell you
It'll only make you cry
I've been there and I'm here to tell you
What you got inside your soul
Deep down you know the truth won't hide
Don't believe the lie
Here comes the morning sun, Shining down on what you've done
And all you feel is empty, And you don't know why it felt like so much fun
Here comes that voice again, acting like your friend
With a whisper in your ear, "You fell too far this time"
BRIDGE:
Like a thief it will come to steal and kill and destroy
But you don't have to let it take your joy anymore
© 2003 Word Music, Inc./Westies Music Publishing,
Admin. by Word Music, Inc. (ASCAP)/
Extreme Writers Group/WB Music Corp. (ASCAP)/ Greenberg Music, Admin by Bug Music (BMI).
(P) 2003 Universal Records South.
Courtesy of Universal Records South under license from Universal Music Enterprises. All Rights Reserved | Used by Permission. International Copyright secured.
Fred's comments on The Lie:
Why is everybody doing it? It must be the peer pressure, right? I seriously doubt it. Granted, peer pressure is strong and it plays its part, but peer pressure alone can't explain how easily the oxymoron "sexually-active Christian youth" slips off the tongue these days, as if that phrase makes perfect sense in the kingdom of God and the average young believer is just naturally going to be that way, no matter what.
Look, peer pressure may be one spoke in this wheel of carnage, but its impact is far too weak to get so many of us all rolling so uniformly down a treacherous hill like this, and I can assure you that if you ever expect to stop the downhill sensual slide in your own life, your strategy had better include far more than eliminating the peer pressure in your life.
Of course, this news is both good and bad. The good news is that we guys aren't all so wimpy as a group that peer pressure alone can reduce us all to robots. We are stronger than that, and that's comforting. The bad news is that there is another reason that everybody's doing it these days, one that's not so nearly as comforting to entertain:
By nature, men get their intimacy tanks filled from what they do prior to and during sexual intercourse. Essentially, sex is our native language of intimacy when it comes to our relationships with women, and it's the language we long to use when we share intimacy and communicate it.
Women have a different native language, and this language more naturally fills their needs for intimacy with talking, sharing, hugging, and touching. Dealing with two different languages can create all kinds of confusion for you on the relational side of things. For one, you aren't even allowed to use your native language outside a marital relationship, according to your Lord. That's a tall order, and it's hard to hold back from communicating this way when you fall in love. That's why guys sometimes push hard against the sexual boundaries of their girlfriends. It's not always because they're "godless pigs" (as my friend Lisa so eloquently puts it) but because they simply long to express their hearts in their innate language of love. Obviously, things can slide downhill quickly in your relationship if you aren't aware of this sexual bent.
Tactics, page 88
This is why "everything you want" seems to be "just across the line," and it is so easy to "step into the flow" and slip across that line-God's boundaries-to "go all the way" on any given night.
With questions about sex looming on every side, maybe you've begun experimenting with your girlfriend. A few years ago, Brad told me, "I know making love is wrong before marriage, but I guess anything short of that is fine. I love to get up under a bra." Brad's "under the bra" experiments eventually ended in regular intercourse with his girl, and those sexual experiments took on a frustrating life of their own and resulted in significant problems. "We've been having sex for over a year, and I'm confused," Brad said. "I think we should break it off, but now I feel obligated to marry her since we've been having sex for so long. I wish we hadn't gone so far. Now I'm worried she might not be the one for me."
"Like a thief it will come to steal and kill and destroy." We live in a culture where the sexual boundaries have been obliterated, disappearing like the chalk lines marking the batter's box after six innings of play. No matter how brightly the sun shines, it can't help you spot them again. It can only spot your sin, burning over you just like it burns over Brad, "shining down on what you've done" until "all you feel is empty and you don't know why it felt like so much fun."
The confusion twists at you, and at times the guilt presses down like steel rods across your chest. If only it stopped there at guilt and confusion ....but it doesn't:
There's a natural progression of addiction in the average, everyday guy, because that's the way God made him sexually. You might as well face it. In an oversexed culture like ours, you are built to fail. Your undisciplined eyes will slip into this progression, not because there's something wrong with you, but because there's nothing wrong with you. Your unguarded sexuality will degrade beneath this broad load of sensual pollution, because your sexuality was never designed to handle it.
Your sexuality was created to blossom and thrive only within a tender and glorious monogamous relationship. There are no alternatives. Expand beyond that realm, and your sexuality will degrade in abnormal ways. If you want to win on the spiritual front and return to normal sexuality, you have to stop the pollution on the physical front.
Tactics, page 53
"Your sin will steal and kill and destroy." But as the song also says, "You don't have to let it take your joy anymore!"
"You were meant for so much more than this!" You were not meant to be owned by your sexuality, just as you were not meant to be owned by the thoughts and habits of others. You weren't meant to search for your manhood by poking and picking amidst the pornographic rubble of our sensual culture or by aping the hedonistic "Christians" around you.
You were meant to be a heroic warrior. You were meant to be a bright star shining in this dark universe:
...so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life-in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing.
Philippians 2:15-16
You were meant to be a man from the word "go," to stand up to temptation and to stand boldly in Satan's face, like Jesus did in the wilderness. And like Derek is doing in his wilderness. He took a step to stop looking at pornographic magazines, and it totally changed his life:
I feel so free now, and do you know what is most amazing to me? I feel much more like a man. I had been tricked into thinking that pornography and premarital sex made me a man, but I was wrong. Real manhood is standing before the devil and denying him his way into your life. Now I feel like a real man, fighting not only for my own purity but also for my girlfriend's purity, as well. I desperately want to show her true love and to guard her spiritually, like a man should.
The apostle Paul will boast of Derek on that day of Christ, because he's become a bright star in today's dark universe. Derek himself would tell you that you can't be a star if you are living darkly, like so many others. Darkness can't shine in the dark-only light does. Don't do what everybody else is doing, no matter how common. It doesn't matter if "everybody's doing it" or "everyone is feeling it." That won't make it right, and it won't make you light. Don't be fooled like this California guy who recently wrote me, "Before I commit completely to purity, I want to be like you were. I want to experience what it is like to have four girlfriends and to be sleeping regularly with three of them. I'm jealous of your earlier life."
He told me he's a Christian. If so, he wasn't meant to have this broken mindset, and neither are you. You are meant to have the mind of Christ, the mind of Him who loves you as His dear, treasured love and brother. I urge you to pick up a copy of Tactics and find out exactly what I mean. The Lord cherishes you no matter how far you've fallen, even if you're still failing in your battle for purity. There is no "too far" for God's arm to reach, and there is no "too long" for God's heart to ache for your return. He'll never let you fall to the floor.
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