On Feb. 8th students at Asbury University gathered together in Hughes Auditorium for a chapel service. One week later, that service hasn’t stopped. So what happened that led up to the revival?

Asbury University Reverend Zach Meerkreebs was preaching to the students about love. Now thousands from around the country have flocked to the sleepy town of Wilmore, Kentucky to partake in the miraculous move of God.

In this Charisma magazine video, we play clips and talk about the sermon he shared that has put a spotlight around the university for the world to see.

“I know the heart of God is not one to keep guilt and shame on us,” Meerkreebs says in the sermon.

Teaching about the sacrificial love of Jesus, he inquired of the students to determine how they love one another and what is the true source of that love.

Meerkreebs spoke from Philippians 2:3-4 which says, “Let nothing be done out of strife or conceit, but in humility let each esteem the other better than himself. Let each of you look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others.”

He told the students, “Pressures off. You can’t love the way this verse speaks. Do you know that? You are loved by Jesus. Stop striving. Stop wearing this heavy burden of ‘I’ve gotta love because I’m a Christian.’ No, you’ve got to love because you’ve tasted and seen the goodness of God.”

At the end of the sermon, he prayed that the students would be overwhelmed by the love of God. That they would experience the kind of love that God has for them because that’s the love the world needs.

Anyone who has been to the revival shares there is a “sweetness” in the air. A tangible love of God is being felt by many around the country. God is clearly showing this generation His relentless love and pursuit of them to change and transform their hearts for one another.

Tune in to the video to hear clips from the sermon. {eoa}

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Shelby Bowen is an assistant editor for Charisma Media.

Hallmark cards are being wiped off the shelves, flowers propped up in pretty vases and a barrage of candy hauled out of local stores. Single or married, just about everyone partakes in Valentine’s Day to some degree.

As a Christian you may be wondering the historical roots of the holiday and whether some of the pagan folklore surrounding the day is true.

So, what is the history?

The first festival that some tie Valentine’s Day to is “Lupercalia,” which was an ancient Roman festival of fertility. Records show that during Feb. 13th-15th some men would kill a goat and a dog, and take the skins of the animals.

Yale Professor Noel Lenski told NPR the women would line up for the men to hit them with the blood soaked skins believing it would help make them fertile.

Pastor Vlad Savchuk posted a video saying, “There is no record of this holiday being a matchmaking that Valentine’s has become today or that is promoted romance or love.”

You’ve probably also heard of Saint Valentine. Valentine was reported to be a temple priest who died in A.D. 270. Some accounts say that he was imprisoned by Emperor Claudius for helping Christians in Rome wed.

While imprisoned some believe he fell in love with the jail keepers daughter. He would send notes to her signed, “Love, Your Valentine.”

It is unclear for certain whether Pope Gelasius I made Feb. 14th into a holiday to celebrate the Christian martyr. “We just don’t see for a thousand something years Christians or other cultures really celebrating love and romance in honor of Saint Valentine,” Savchuk says.

Valentine’s Day gained more popularity after Chaucer and Shakespeare started writing about the romantic day in their work, which spread across Europe into the New World. A man by the name of Geoffrey also wrote a poem called “The Parliament of Fowls.”

“It probably had more influence on what we know the Valentine’s Day to be today than anything else. It was written in the 14th century. It described a group of bird which would gather together in the early spring to Saint Valentine’s day,” Savchuk says.

People around the world would send love letters during bird mating season which also fell in February.

In 2020 Forbes reported that Valentine’s Day is a now $20 billion holiday, “a day where 145 million cards trade hands.” The giving of cards on the holiday in America originated from Esther Howland. She designed unique, pricey cards that later turned into New England Valentine Co.

With that being said…

“Historically speaking it’s not really connected to a pagan holiday and historically speaking it’s not really connected to a guy who was martyred,” Savchuk says.

He encourages all Christians out there to look at their motive. If you are married and want to go out of your way to celebrate your spouse with a thoughtful card and romantic evening—that’s great! If you are a Christian single going out to party and get together with different people then that would be wrong.

Whether you are married or single we can all embody the kind of love talked about in the Bible. First Corinthians 13 tells us that love is long suffering, love is kind, love does not envy, love isn’t puffed up, love does not behave improperly, love does not seek its own, love is not easily provoked, love rejoices in truth, love bears all, believes all, hopes all, endures all thing and love never fails.

This Valentine’s Day you can prayerfully examine your heart in each of those areas to see how you can better love those around you. {eoa}

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Shelby Bowen is an assistant editor for Charisma Media.

Mary Magdalene is one of the first characters to come onto the scene in the hit Bible series “The Chosen.” Her character’s grit and vulnerability has not only impacted viewers, but the actor who portrays the disciple as well.

Elizabeth Tabish, 36, recently told CBN’s Faithwire her role in the series, a biblical and historical drama created by Christian filmmaker Dallas Jenkins, has profoundly impacted her own understanding of Jesus.

“Living with these scenes and living with the words of these scenes … I’m thinking about it all day long,” she explained. “I’m thinking about the character, the goal for the character, of what they’re wanting in the scene. … And it starts seeping into my own sort of, like, consciousness. It becomes sort of an ongoing meditation almost on these themes.”

“That influences you,” the actor continued. “When you’re living with it for so long, you start almost thinking that [way], which I think is a gift when you’re working on shows like [‘The Chosen’], because I’m constantly thinking about Mary Magdalene’s love for Jesus and that shifts into my love for Jesus.”

Tabish also recently began shooting scenes for “The Shift,” a sci-fi, feature-length film loosely based on the Old Testament book of Job. While many of the plot details have yet to be revealed, the Angel Studios movie follows a man named Kevin Granger as he journeys “through the multiverse back to what matters most to him,” according to writer and director Brock Heasley.

The film, slated for release in late 2023, also features Sean Astin (“Lord of the Rings,” “Stranger Things”), Kristoffer Polaha (“Wonder Woman 1984”), Neal McDonough (“Band of Brothers”), as well as Tabish’s “Chosen” co-stars Paras Patel and Jorden Walker Ross.

Thinking about her work for “The Shift,” in which she plays Molly, the wife of Kevin Granger, Tabish said she feels “lucky that I get to live in those mental spaces with roles that are really life-affirming and hopeful.”

Tabish, who told CBN’s Faithwire last year that, though once skeptical, she is aware now more than ever that “God’s love is real,” was drawn to the honesty and authenticity of “The Shift.” So many faith-based films, she said, give the impression that life is much easier after salvation — but that is not always the case. In fact, in John 16:33, Jesus promises believers will face trials and persecution in this life.

For the rest of this article, visit our content partners at .{eoa}

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The revival fires are continuing to burn brightly at Asbury University, even after 133 hours, and now this outpouring of the Holy Spirit is spreading to more college campuses.

As CBN News reported, for days, people have been giving testimonies, reading scripture, worshipping God, and praying in the ongoing revival that began Feb. 8 at this historic Christian university located in Wilmore, Kentucky. Students, professors and local church leaders have taken part.

Students from multiple colleges have now been drawn to the Asbury campus. According to several reports, another chapel has been opened at Asbury as three auditoriums on the campus are now filled with people.

Thane Hutcherson Ury, a professor at the school, wrote in a Facebook post on Feb. 11, about how the revival at Asbury had caused alumni, pastors, seekers and buses of students from other schools to come to the campus to seek God. He listed 24 other universities where busloads of students have been coming from to visit the Asbury awakening.

One of the schools Ury listed is Lee University, a private Christian college in Cleveland, Tennessee.

Last Friday, Lee University Campus Pastor Rob Fultz noted on Twitter, “What’s happening at Asbury is not and will not remain confined. It will, and already is awakening the deep wells of revival on campuses across the nation. They have been churning, pressing against the seals that have kept them hidden and they are about to burst with new life.”

On Monday, Fultz wrote the revival had reached the Lee campus, writing: “A mighty move of God started this morning at Lee and it has been building throughout the day. We are approaching the 10th hour, nothing but voices in prayer, worship, and repentance.”

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Reprinted with permission from . Copyright © 2022 The Christian Broadcasting Network Inc. All rights reserved.“

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For many years now, I have been grieved over the lack of spiritual hunger in much of the church of America. With our society deteriorating around us and with large numbers of professing Christians departing from the faith, many of us have been more complacent than desperate (in the best sense of that word).

Why so little prayer and fasting? Why such feint cries for revival?

Of course, there were notable exceptions to this rule, including many houses of prayer, many gatherings for fasting and intercession and many brokenhearted leaders and believers. But it was not until the fall of 2019 that I began to sense a rising time of corporate hunger.

As I wrote in my 2021 book “Revival Or We Die: A Great Awakening Is Our Only Hope,” “The thing that gives me the greatest hope is that God has put a cry in the hearts of His people. Believers across the nation have been seeking Him earnestly for a fresh outpouring, a tendency I began to notice more markedly in the second half of 2019.

“Then, the crisis of 2020—meaning that the whole year was a crisis—caused that cry to go deeper. And, I repeat, it was God Himself who put the cry in our hearts and moved us to pray. Why would He do this if it was too late for America? Why would He move us to pray if He didn’t intend to answer our prayers? Why would He raise our vision for revival and build our faith for awakening if He only planned judgment and destruction?

“Matthew Henry once said, ‘When God intends great mercy for His people, the first thing He does is set them a-praying.’ I ask you, then: Would God have set us to praying if He had no intention of showing mercy? And could there be such sustained intercession for revival if the Lord did not initiate it?”

What happened since then?

COVID happened, shaking the nation and revealing a lot of about our own lives and congregations.

The race riots happened, bringing division and separation right into our churches.

The politicizing of the church happened, with followers of Jesus becoming just as polarized as the world and with many of us becoming more identified with a party and a candidate than with the Lord.

The failed Trump prophecies happened, putting more egg on our face and bringing mockery to the Holy Spirit.

Christian leadership scandals happened on a very public, national level, bringing disgrace to the name of Jesus and only increasing distrust in the church.

It would seem, then, that we received the exact opposite of what we were praying for, namely, national abasement rather than a fresh wave of revival. Not so!

This is actually exactly what we were praying for, only we didn’t realize it. That’s because God comes as a refiner’s fire (see Malachi 3:1-5), purifying His people before He empowers His people, humbling us before lifting us up.

What, exactly, does a refiner’s fire do? It brings the impurities to the surface so they can be skimmed off and removed. It shows us our sin so that we can repent.

It is a painful and humbling process, one that can lead to agonizing public confession. But it is the very thing that prepares the way for the coming of the Lord. It is often the first step in revival.

As I wrote in “The End of the American Gospel Enterprise,” my first revival book, published in 1989:

God’s fire purifies and refines. Malachi prophesied that the Lord would come to His people as “a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap”. On that day, the prophet says, “He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; He will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver” (Mal. 3:2-3). He will pass His priestly servants through the flames, melting all impurities out with His heat. Ouch!

Have you ever been refined in God’s furnace? Have you experienced the heat of His flames? Has your dross risen up to the surface — filthy, ugly and proud — so that God could skim it off? Have you been shocked to see how much flesh was still there — impurities and imperfections of every kind — before the intense fire of God’s visitation melted it away?

No one likes to talk about sin. No one wants to be “negative.” But God has a higher purpose. He doesn’t want to concentrate on the negative, He wants to remove it! He wants us to add to our “righteousness consciousness” a depth of “righteousness conduct.” He wants to conform us to the image of Messiah, in thought, in word, and in deed. He wants to make us pure.

Listen to the words of the great apostle of faith, Smith Wigglesworth: “If you are to be really reconstructed, it will be a hard time . . . not in a singing meeting, but when you think there is no hope for you . . . tried by fire . . . God purges, takes the dross away and brings forth pure gold. Only melted gold is minted.”

What was Wigglesworth’s own experience? How did he walk in such a degree of the love and power of God? This was his personal testimony:

“Before God could bring me to this place He broke me a thousand times. I have wept, I have groaned, I have travailed many a night until God broke me. It seems to me that until God has mowed you down you never can have this longsuffering for others.

“There have been times when I have been pressed through circumstances and it seemed as if a dozen railroad engines were going over me, but I have found that the hardest things are just lifting places into the grace of God.”

If you’ve never been “burned,” get ready, because this is what revival is about. It is only the scorched ones He can use.

The refiner’s fire has come to the church of America in the last few years, bringing our impurities to the surface for the world to see. And those fires will continue to burn in our land, bringing us to deeper repentance. But the Spirit is also being poured out as well.

As I said on the Jan. 30, 2023 Line of Fire broadcast, “I believe that we are in the early stages of the first waves of the next revival movement in America. I believe that the tide will continue to rise.” (See also this Nov. 2022 article on the coming national outpouring.)

The outpouring at Asbury is a further sign that things are right on schedule.

Bring it all, Lord! {eoa}

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Dr. Michael Brown () is the host of the nationally syndicated Line of Fire radio program. His latest book is “The Political Seduction of the Church: How Millions of American Christians Have Confused Politics with the Gospel.” Connect with him on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.

People continue to ask Alexandra Presta if the Asbury University Revival, which has been going on non-stop for a week in the school’s chapel, was planned.

The answer? An unequivocal “no.”

In an interview with CBN and Faithwire’s Billy Hallowell, Presta, the editor of the school’s newspaper, The Asbury Collegian, says there is no way she and her fellow students could have concocted this monumental happening in the body of Christ.

“This was purely God moving and keeping people here and bringing others in,” Presta says. “People are crossing state lines to come here. It’s absolutely insane.

“This is truly different because no one expected this to happen. This was literally the Holy Spirit choosing that day and this group of people. There’s nothing overly special about Asbury or the students, but the Holy Spirit just chose to fall down on us and touch our hearts. You knew it was different because our postures were different. We were to open to God’s love and what the Holy Spirit is trying to do.”

And as of Tuesday morning, it is showing no signs of stopping or slowing down, Presta says.

“From my perspective, it’s absolutely insane,” Presta says. “My friends and I have been talking with each other, and we know that our culture is going to be changed by this. As long as the Holy Spirit tells us to keep going, then we’re going to keep going.

“I’ve had people from Brazil and from Italy reaching out to me. It’s just mind blowing. It’s the importance of recognizing that it’s just a building, and God is not limited to just a building or this campus or this town. Some might feel led to come, and we want you here. But recognize the fact that the same Holy Spirit that is here is with you wherever you are.”

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Shawn A. Akers is the online editor at Charisma Media.

After School Satan Clubs have drawn headlines and national attention in recent years, targeting public schools that have already approved Good News Clubs to host meetings during after-school hours.

In a scattering of communities from California to Virginia, parents have protested the Satan clubs, asking their districts to not approve their applications to meet. That’s left school administrators with a difficult decision: accept all clubs no matter the viewpoint or shut down after-school clubs altogether.

The After School Satan Club (ASSC) has not hidden its agenda. Organizers say they’ll only open a club if religious groups are already meeting on a school’s campus.

Its website explains: “ASSC exists to provide a safe and inclusive alternative to the religious clubs that use threats of eternal damnation to convert school children to their belief system.”

In December, the ASSC applied to start a club at B.M. Williams Primary School in Chesapeake, Virginia.

Just a few months earlier, a local church that had a long history of volunteering at the school, had started a Good News Club.

“It really was the next logical step,” Pastor Chris Williams of CenterPoint Community Church told CBN News. “We had this group that was already ministering to these families, already had these relationships.”

Williams said he was unaware of the Satan Club before it applied and wondered how its application would affect their club.

“They’re opposed to our views and they’re trying to counter and even undermine our presence there so I’m concerned in that regard,” he said. “I think the wrong kind of attention could force the school board to say we can’t do any of these clubs.”

Parents packed the Chesapeake public school board meeting on Dec. 12th with the majority expressing concern. One mom told the board, “We can’t be so afraid of being mocked or called names or canceled that we open the door wide open to evil in our community and most importantly to our children.”

The Missouri-based Child Evangelism Fellowship started in 1937 and operates clubs in the U.S. and around the world. It reached more than 15 million children worldwide in 2021 with more than 55,000 club meetings. In the U.S., thousands of clubs meet and share the gospel with children.

For the rest of this article, visit our content partners at .

Reprinted with permission from . Copyright © 2022 The Christian Broadcasting Network Inc. All rights reserved.

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Every portion of Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching (doctrine/instruction), for reproof (conviction when we sin), for correction (setting things right when we err) and for training in righteousness (when out of shape in righteousness) that the man (or woman) of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

And with that, the apostle Paul explains the cataclysmic disaster and cultural reversal foisted on the American people through the secularization of culture and ideological bent of the U.S. Supreme Court in the early/mid-20th century. Judicial overreach usurped the authority of the Legislative and Executive Branches of Government by sanctioning the induction of pagan secularism in Engel v. Vitale (1962), Abington School District v. Schempp (1963) and Stone v. Graham (1980).

A later pair of misbegotten Supreme Court’s adjudications includes the outright fabrication in 1973 of a “constitutional right” to kill unborn babies in Roe v. Wade, while the second in 2015 called upon the no less fictitious “right” to homosexual intercourse and constitutional marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges.

Concerning the 5-4 decision in the Obergefell v. Hodges case, two votes in favor came from leftist Justices Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who, impervious to moral and ethical principles, both had performed same-sex weddings prior to hearing the case, yet refused to recuse themselves.

When decoupled from biblical morality and unguided by God-inspired wisdom, a society’s condition of moral and social vigor and wellness can only be what it currently has become: anything a majority of nine Justices any given day can agree upon. Meaning that “no judicial decision is ever final, that the law both follows the event (therefore is not eternal or certain) and is made by man (who is not divine or true).”

American Christendom has finally reached its Kairos. The flawed model of “butts in seats, massive budgets and multiple buildings and campuses” as the measure of success has produced an infinitesimal, almost undetectable impact on the culture and a near invisible footprint in the public square. A completely different approach, modeled after Jesus’ ecclesia kingdom assignment from Matthew 16:18, will be called for if America is to experience a spiritual re-awakening.

America finds itself in exactly the same predicament as Elijah in 1 Kings 18, with God’s people continuing in the sin of syncretism. America’s last two or three generations have been brought up in the false libertine ideology of “the synthesis between Yahweh and Baal being praised as progress and accepted as the highest form of wisdom.”

Peter J. Leithart’s outstanding work “Between Babel and Beast: America and Empires in Biblical Perspective” brings an assessment that initially may seem harsh, yet will appear as bland in light of the public appearance of Biden Administration male senior staff in pantyhose and high heels: “Until American churches actually function as outposts of Jesus’ heavenly empire rather than as cheerleaders for America—until the churches produce martyrs rather than patriots—the political witness of Christians will continue to be diluted and co-opted.”

This brings us to Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, Feb. 8:

“I’ll be the first to admit, President Biden and I don’t have a lot in common. I’m for freedom. He’s for government control. At 40, I’m the youngest governor in the country. At 80, he’s the oldest president in American history. I’m the first woman to lead my state. He’s the first man to surrender his presidency to a woke mob that can’t even tell you what a woman is.

“In the radical left’s America, Washington taxes you and lights your hard-earned money on fire, but you get crushed with high gas prices, empty grocery shelves and our children are taught to hate one another on account of their race, but not to love one another or our great country. Whether Joe Biden believes this madness or is simply too weak to resist it, his administration has been completely hijacked by the radical left. The dividing line in America is no longer between right or left. The choice is between normal or crazy.”

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich tweeted after her speech: “A star is born could be the title of Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders absolutely remarkable speech responding to and drawing a sharp contrast with President Biden’s fantasy wish list state of the union. It was Reaganesque.”

“Normal” as a qualification befits the America established and sustained through the 17th and 18th centuries by exceptional people, steeped in biblical thought, biblical values and God-emulating character.

“Where persecution of the Puritans in England for non-conformity and religious agitations were the preparatory ordeals for qualifying Christian men for the work of establishing the civil institutions on the American continent. It was in these schools of fiery trial that the founders of the American republic were educated and prepared for their grand Christian mission, and in which faith and characters became strong and earnest with Christian truth. They were trained in stormy times in order to prepare them to elaborate and establish the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty and of just systems of civil government.”

America’s Founders understood that virtue and liberty are inseparably linked and that liberty cannot long be preserved in the absence of virtue among the people and their representatives. Immorality is not a matter of indifference to God.

Praise be to God that Rahabs and Gideons are beginning to stand. {eoa}

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David Lane is the founder of the American Renewal Project.

Pastor Todd Smith knows a little bit about how God can keep a revival going. This month, Christ Fellowship Church in Dawsonville, Georgia, will celebrate its fifth year of the North Georgia Revival, a move of God that has been going strong since 2018.

Mike Felhlauer is also familiar with God’s presence in his church. The pastor at New Life Church in Corpus Christi, Texas, has witnessed a powerful move of the spirit in his church since 2018.

And both Smith and Fehlauer have some encouraging advice for the people at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky, who have seen an incredible outpouring of the Holy Spirit happening in their chapel since last Wednesday. The school’s newspaper, The Asbury Collegian, reported that on opening night, at least 100 people fell to their knees and bowed at the altar.

And the move of God hasn’t stopped.

“It’s a beautiful thing that is happening at Asbury,” says Smith, whose church has seen 30,000 baptisms during its Sunday night services since 2018 and will celebrate its fifth anniversary on Feb. 19. “There has to be brokenness and contrition and repentance for such a move of God to come. That looks like what has been demonstrated there and it’s continuing right now. But the moment prayer and brokenness is no longer a priority, then the fire diminishes and He pulls out. We must keep seeking after the face of God.

“We all must stay and remain broken before the Lord. The presence of the Lord increases the glory of the Lord and it continues to intensify. The power of the Lord is in our baptismal waters, and it has created miracles.”

Prayer, he added, is “what fuels revival—that and brokenness.”

“Those elements are the oxygen for revival,” he says.

Fehlauer agrees with Smith’s assessment 100%. As a student at Nazarene University in the 1980s, he remembers hearing about and reading about revival at Asbury University in 1970.

“It was amazing what happened back then and it’s amazing what is going on right now,” Fehlauer said.

Smith says individuals have been healed of cancers, tumors have disappeared and legally blind eyes have been opened in the baptismal waters at Christ Fellowship. In addition, Smith says people have been freed from lifelong addictions to drugs, alcohol, pornography and homosexuality.

“These bondages are being drowned in the waters on our altar, but it has nothing to do with any of us,” Smith says. “Everyone who goes in is encountering the Lord in the water. He just suffocates, obliterates these strongholds and evicts the trespasser.

“And this is not your typical revival led by a personality. God’s presence is driven by a move of the Spirit, and it’s been that way for five years. In all honesty, we want to remain nameless and faceless. We’re not attaching this to any ministry. This is all led by local pastors and nobody else is getting the glory except for God.”

Fehlauer says New Life Church in Corpus Christi saw 837 baptisms last year and that he himself was involved in only three. In fact, he says, the Holy Spirit has empowered other members of the staff and the church to be God’s hands in the miracles that they are witnessing.

Fehlauer says that the revival that is happening right now at Asbury University just is “part of God’s plan” and that we’re about to see it accelerate.

“God is starting revival fires all around the country,” Fehlauer says. “The pockets of revival become a big wave. It’s awesome. As far as when these special meetings are over, students need to continue to walk in that humility and that place of complete surrender.

“If the finished work of the cross will continue to be central for every part of their lives, if they will take the revival fires they have and not let those fires go out, that will only fan the flame of revival,” Fehlauer says. “They need to share with others what they have seen and experienced. That will keep it going for a long, long time.” {eoa}

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Shawn A. Akers is the online editor at Charisma Media.

In today’s culture where people are bombarded with messages that encourage promiscuity, Liberty Counsel is encouraging Christians to take a public stand for purity. The 20th annual Day of Purity is a campaign that encourages followers of Jesus Christ to wear white on Feb. 14 to publicly promote abstinence and inspire others to save sexual intimacy for marriage.

The Day of Purity is based on God’s Word that encourages holiness and sexual purity. For example, 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 says, “Flee sexual immorality. Every other sin that a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or 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 bought for a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”

Participants are also encouraged to wear a special LIVEPURE wristband on that day and throughout the year.

While Hollywood and the media may encourage sexual activity without limits, practicing purity before marriage has spiritual, physical, emotional and social benefits.

Regarding the physical benefits, the benefits of abstinence before marriage include preventing diseases, pregnancies and even abortions. On average, young people in the United States have sexual intercourse for the first time at about age 17, but do not marry until their mid-20s. An estimated 19 million new cases of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are diagnosed each year in the United States—almost half of them among young people age 15 to 24. In 2020, unmarried women accounted for 86% of all abortions. Young women under 15 years obtained .2% of all 2020 abortions, women 15–19 years accounted for 8.2%, women 20-24 years accounted for 27.9% and women 25-29 years accounted for 29.3%.

Regarding the emotional and social benefits of purity, research has shown that couples who delay sexual intimacy until their wedding night have more stability in their marriages and are less likely to divorce than couples who have premarital sex. In fact, as cited in “The Handbook of Sexuality in Close Relationships,” when love and commitment is expressed after a couple becomes sexually involved, “the experience is perceived as a negative turning point, evoking regret, uncertainty, discomfort, and prompting apologies.”

Liberty Counsel Vice President of Media and International Director for the Day of Purity Holly Meade said, “The Day of Purity is an opportunity for Christians to take a stand for purity and publicly communicate they will not be influenced by Hollywood’s images and sexual temptations. In today’s culture, we are constantly bombarded with messages luring us to become sexually active at a young age and to experiment with sexual preferences. However, research confirms that practicing purity before marriage has spiritual, physical, emotional and social benefits. We as the church must stand up and be an example as God as called us to be.

“However, participating in previous sexual intimacy does not exempt someone from this special campaign. Jesus Christ always offers forgiveness and provides a clean start. So, I encourage all single believers to wear white on Feb. 14 and take a public stand for purity,” Meade said. {eoa}

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