Sacred Intimacy (eBook)

God's Design for Pleasure, Purity, and Partnership in Marriage

Jimmie F. Booze (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
268 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3178-1904-0 (ISBN)

Infos

Sacred Intimacy: God's Design for Pleasure, Purity, and Partnership in Marriage is a biblical, practical, and deeply candid guide to restoring passion and purpose in Christian marriages. Many couples love God and love each other, yet silently wrestle with shame, unmet needs, trauma, temptation, or sexual disconnect in the one place intimacy should be safest - their covenant bed. Drawing from Scripture, counseling insight, and lived experience, this book helps husbands and wives rediscover the joy, freedom, and holiness God intended for their physical relationship. Sacred Intimacy invites couples to heal, to reconnect, and to embrace intimacy not as a duty, but as a form of worship, unity, and spiritual warfare.

About the Author Jimmie is a Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor (LCDC), a pastor, a mentor, and a community builder with over 40 years of experience in ministry. Drawing from his diverse background as a former retail banking branch manager, investment representative, insurance agent, entrepreneur, and community organizer, Jimmie has dedicated his life to helping individuals and families experience freedom, restoration, and purpose. As the founder of Equip Ministries, Inc., Life Skills Pro, LLC, and C.H.E.S.S. House, a sober living home, he combines biblical truth with practical tools to transform lives - from recovery and reentry programs to leadership development and marriage restoration. His unique approach blends biblical counseling, motivational interviewing (MI), and a deep passion for helping couples cultivate intimacy that reflects God's covenant love. Jimmie and his wife, Theresa, continue to build a life where their motto is 'We do it Better Together' which reflects the very principles they teach - commitment, forgiveness, and joy. They have three daughters, along with grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and continue to model what it means to thrive in faith, family, and purpose.

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Marriage was created to be a sanctuary - emotionally, spiritually, and physically. Yet, in too many Christian homes, the marriage bed has become a place of silence, struggle, or secrecy. Churches preach covenant. Culture preaches pleasure. But few equip believers to experience pleasure within covenant - the place God designed it to flourish. Sacred Intimacy confronts that silence with truth, tenderness, and hope. From the Garden of Eden to the writings of Paul, from the Song of Solomon to the Cross, Scripture reveals that sexual intimacy is not merely allowed it is blessed. It is a divine gift meant to fuel oneness, joy, and spiritual strength. However, trauma, pornography, emotional disconnection, betrayal, shame, and worldly influence have distorted what God called "e;very good."e; In this book, couples will learn to: ? Rebuild intimacy through mutual honor, communication, and delight? Identify and break strongholds that sabotage sexual and emotional connection? Create a marriage bed that is undefiled, joy-filled, and shame-free? Heal from past wounds through forgiveness, truth, and the Holy Spirit's restoring work? Practice biblical sexuality that is passionate, playful, and pure not performative or permissive? Use intimacy as ministry, covenant renewal, and spiritual warfare Blending theology with practical tools, reflection questions, inner healing principles, and grace-filled instruction, Sacred Intimacy offers a pathway for marriages to not only survive but thrive. Whether a couple is newly married, decades in, recovering from betrayal, or rebuilding after a sexual drought, this book shows that God still restores, still redeems, and still reignites holy fire in the hearts and bedrooms of His people. Your marriage is a covenant. Your intimacy is part of your worship. And your story isn't over.

Textauszug

Chapter 2:

The Sacredness of Sex – From Eden to the Cross

“And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”—Genesis 2:25 (KJV)

Statement of Truth: “sexual passion is not merely permissible in marriage —
it is part of God’s design for joy, unity, and worship.”

Introduction –
Why This Matters

Sex is one of the most powerful, pleasurable, and profoundly spiritual gifts God has entrusted to humanity — and yet it remains one of the most misunderstood, distorted, and silenced topics in the Church.

From the opening pages of Scripture, we see that God’s design for sexual intimacy was never accidental, never secondary, never an afterthought. He wove it into the very fabric of creation — not merely as a means for producing children, but as a covenant bond between husband and wife, a living picture of His own faithful, life-giving love.

Yet, over time, this divine gift has been mishandled in three tragic ways:

1.Reduced to Mere Biology

In some circles, sex is treated as nothing more than a mechanical process — a biological necessity for the continuation of the human race. Its emotional depth, spiritual symbolism, and covenantal beauty are stripped away, leaving only the functional. This utilitarian view robs sex of its wonder and flattens it into something purely physical.

2.Shamed and Silenced

In other contexts, sex is considered dangerous, shameful, or unmentionable. It is whispered about in private, ignored from the pulpit, and spoken only in warnings. For many believers, the lingering message has been that sex is barely tolerable — a concession for marriage rather than a gift to be celebrated. As a result, couples may enter marriage carrying guilt, fear, or distorted expectations that choke intimacy before it can flourish.

3.Ripped from Its Sacred Context

Meanwhile, in our hypersexualized culture, sex has been severed from covenant and stripped of its holiness. It is marketed as a commodity, paraded as entertainment, and pursued as a recreational thrill without responsibility or commitment. In this view, sex is no longer about love, unity, or self-giving — it is about self-gratification, conquest, and personal indulgence.

These distortions have done more than cloud our theology — they have wounded marriages, fractured identities, and robbed God’s people of one of His greatest blessings.

The Biblical Picture

When we return to Scripture, we see a strikingly different image. Sex was — and is — God’s idea. He designed it to be:

• Good — flowing from His own goodness and generosity (Genesis 1:31).
• Joyful — meant for delight, not dread (Proverbs 5:18–19; Song of Solomon 4:9–10).
• Creative — joining man and woman in both life-giving union and love-giving intimacy.
• Holy — set apart within the marriage covenant as a reflection of His own faithful love. It was never meant to be a source of shame but a sign of covenant love — a living testimony to God’s design that two shall become one flesh (Genesis 2:24). When enjoyed within the safety of God’s covenant boundaries, sex is not only pure, but prophetic — proclaiming the unity, “

Sex in Eden – God’s Original Design

Created by God, Not Culture

The first mention of human sexuality in Scripture comes before the Fall, before sin ever entered the human story. In Genesis 1:27–28, we read: “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it…’

Sex was not a cultural invention. It was not the result of human trial and error. It was not something that evolved. It was God’s idea from the very beginning — His deliberate design for His image-bearers. But Scripture doesn’t stop with biology. In Genesis 2:24–25, the Spirit pulls back the curtain to reveal the deeper reality: “…and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”

This is not simply permission for physical intimacy — it is God’s declaration that sexual union within marriage is:

• Sacred (qadosh) — Set apart from all other human interactions. In the same way that the temple was set apart for worship, the marriage bed is set apart for covenant love.
• Uniting — Designed to forge an inseparable bond between husband and wife that no one else is meant to share or imitate.
• Shame-free — Lived in vulnerability without guilt, fear, or the contamination of sin. This shame-free intimacy was the normal state of Eden.

One Flesh – More Than Physical

The Hebrew phrase “one flesh” (echad basar) is far richer than anatomy. It paints a picture of total union — body, soul, and Spirit joined in covenant (Brown, Driver, & Briggs, 1906).

• Physical Union – The joining of two bodies in sexual intimacy, experiencing the pleasure God embedded in human design.
• Emotional Union – The intertwining of hearts, affections, and daily lives. This is the companionship Adam longed for when God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18).
• Spiritual Union – A covenantal oneness that God Himself affirms and seals. Jesus reaffirmed this in Matthew 19:6: “So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

This means sex in marriage is not just physical release. It is covenant renewal — a physical expression of a spiritual reality that says, “I am still yours. You are still mine. We are still one.”

Sex as Covenant Seal

In biblical thought, sex functions as more than a marital benefit — it is a seal of the covenant. Just as circumcision sealed the covenant with Abraham (Genesis 17) and communion seals the believer’s fellowship with Christ (Luke 22:20), sexual union within marriage seals the promise between husband and wife.

Every time a husband and wife come together in intimacy, they are — knowingly or not — reaffirming the vows they made before God. This is why Paul warns against withholding intimacy in 1 Corinthians 7:5 — not simply because of temptation, but because regular intimacy strengthens the covenant bond God intended.

Why This Matters

In Eden, sex was worship without words. It was a holy act of trust, joy, and oneness in the presence of God. There was no hiding, no pretense, no fear of being used or discarded. That’s the standard God set from the beginning — and the vision He still calls us to reclaim in marriage today.

When we recover God’s original design for sex, we see it not as a source of shame or a casual pastime, but as a sacred gift — a living reminder of the unity, faithfulness, and delight that God Himself shares with His people.

The Fall – How Sin Distorted the Sacred

The entrance of sin in Genesis 3 did not merely fracture humanity’s relationship with God — it also shattered the purity and joy of marital intimacy. The very thing God designed as a gift became tangled in shame, mistrust, and brokenness.

Shame Entered

Before sin, nakedness was a sign of covenant transparency — an embodied way of saying, “I am fully seen, fully known, and fully safe with you.” In Genesis 2:25, Adam and Eve were “naked and not ashamed.”

But the moment they disobeyed God, everything changed: “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.”—Genesis 3:7

Nakedness — once a picture of innocence — became a trigger for fear. What had been a gift for the union now felt like a risk for exposure. The first thing they did was hide their bodies from one another, and then hide from God Himself (Genesis 3:8).

Theologically, this is profound: before the Fall, their bodies were temples of glory; after the Fall, they were objects of vulnerability.

Blame Entered

Intimacy thrives in trust, but the Fall replaced trust with suspicion and defensiveness. Adam’s words to God reveal the fracture: “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.”—Genesis 3:12

In a single sentence, Adam does three things:

1. Blames Eve – shifting fault away...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.11.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Partnerschaft / Sexualität
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3178-1904-0 / 9798317819040