Solomon says to enjoy the wife of your youth and immediately follows his instruction with “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might;” (Eccl 3:9-10). In this verse you may say that two good motivations for sex would be to enjoy your wife and to go for it with all your might. Certainly enjoyment of the marital relationship plays a role in good sex, as does both spouses putting all their energy into it.
But as good as all these things are alone, none of them captures the biblical motivation for good sex.
The Primary Motivation for good sex is Love.
We are commanded to live by love.
Love is the primary motivation for everything good in marriage and life according to the Bible. When Jesus summarized the teaching of the Bible, He said:
37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40)
Therefore, any good thing – including sex – needs to have as a motivation to love God first and then love your neighbor.
We are motivated by love to live.
Paul talks about love in a slightly different way. He writes:
14 For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; 15 and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)
Paul does not highlight the command to love; but, instead, highlights how Christ’s love for us motivates everything we do. He uses the term compels us, which simply means that the love we receive from Christ controls our thinking and desires. Specifically, we observe the sacrificial love that Jesus demonstrated for us and we determine to live for Jesus and not for ourselves.
So what about love?
Understanding Love according to Jesus Christ
If we are commanded to love and we are also motivated by Christ’s love, then we must understand how Christ loves. There are a few key elements of the love of Christ that are helpful to us. To summarize Christ’s love for us that motivates our living, consider again Paul’s reminder in Ephesians 5.
“And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma” (Eph 5:2).
Christ’s love is giving.
Jesus demonstrates a fundamental component of love – it gives. Throughout the New Testament, agape love always gives. This is a fundamental component of loving others; that is, love gives. Dr. Bob Smith describes what this love is like:
Love seeks to give in order to satisfy another. Scripture shows that the primary definition of the word love is “giving.” John 3:16 says that “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.” Galatians 2:20 tells that Christ “loved me and gave Himself up for me.” Ephesians 5:25 says that “Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.” The focus of love is on giving to others. In fact, according to Acts 20:35, Jesus taught that the greater pleasure that we receive is through giving: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (CCNT). If love is the basis for sex, the goal of the sexual relationship is giving, not getting.
Did you catch the implication for good sex? He writes, “If love is the basis for sex, the goal of the sexual relationship is giving, not getting.” I’ll discuss this more in just a moment.
Christ’s love is sacrificial.
Paul continues to describe the kind of love in which we are to walk when he refers to it as an offering and a sacrifice. Not only is love to be giving, it also must be sacrificial. What does it mean then to be sacrificial? Essentially this means that you put God and others before self. This has two implications. Toward God, you make it your goal to honor Him in whatever you do. In relationship to others, you make it your goal to please the other person rather than yourself.
This kind of love makes the needs, desires, and concerns of the other person more important than personal ones. In other words, as it relates to sex, the needs, desires, and concerns of your married partner must be greater than your own. Why? Because that is the way we love as we have been loved by Christ.
What are the implications for good sex?
There are two key implications of how the love of Christ motivates us and provides for us a proper motivation for our sex as well.
- Your motivation for sex and understanding of love should be much greater than the world’s view. Your own personal pleasure should never be the primary motivation for good sex. Instead, it should be others-centered, sacrificial, agape love. This is one of the places where the world’s system of love and sex often circumvents God’s view in the life of the Christian. Many times Christians agree that love means giving and not getting, making sacrifices for others, and looking to please others more than self. They agree until they begin to think about sex. Often sex is segregated out from the biblical view of love. A functional transition takes place where love changes from giving to getting, from others-centered to self-centered, from desiring to please God and others first to desiring to please self. This is inconsistent and wrong.
- Love is giving not getting. The proper view of biblical love is through the lens of giving not getting. Consider again the question, What motivates good sex? Biblical love does. Love that is committed to giving more than getting. For the husband, this kind of love stimulates an erection because of the desire to provide pleasure for a wife not receive pleasure. For the wife, this kind of love produces passion to make her husband receive incredible sexual pleasure from her. Two spouses motivated by Christ’s love to provide maximum satisfaction for the other spouse, rather than the goal to just receive pleasure.
Therefore, for the couple who understands the command to love and the motivation for love, good sex is the outcome. What kind of good sex? Sex that leaves the spouse satisfied that he or she personally has done all that he or she could physically, emotionally, and spiritually do to satisfy the other in love. Love has provided the motivation to serve the other person sacrificially. This, in turn, provides benefits to both spouses.
So, in preparation for the next blog on sex, ask yourself this question, “What are the benefits of good sex?” Talk with you then.
Part 1: What Do You Need to Know about Sex and Why?
Part 2: What is the Ultimate Purpose of Sex?
KevinCarson.com | Walking together through life as friends in Christ sharing wisdom along the journey