NAKED

Tolu grew up in a Christian home,and so she got exposed to the Bible early. She had learned about the creation, how our first parents sinned and it brought sin, how the world inherited the sin problem,and man's need of a Saviour. She knew about how Jesus came to repair the damage and how by believing in Him, we become God's kids and friends. She learnt about God's future plan for a new heaven and new earth populated by his kids. She knew about living a life pleasing to Father God.

And so she had learnt to be a good kid. She was the kind of child parents pray for: obedient, respectful, studious, washed the plates when she should, without being told twice, etc.

At the age of 9, she formally confessed her belief in Jesus Christ and what he had done for her on the cross. And she became born again.

She had always been the model child even before she got born again, so being a good Christian wasn't difficult for her. If anything, she studied her Bible with increasing enthusiasm, asking questions about being a believer from her Sunday school teacher and parents, which they were only too ready to answer.

On to her teen years, she started receiving a different kind of lecture from her parents and church teachers. Mommy sat her down and told her to stay away from boys, from Sex, until she was married. Mommy told her about how her virginity was meant to be a gift to her husband: told her harrowing tales of girls who lost their womb because they got pregnant before marriage and tried to abort the pregnancy : told her how girls looked old and haggard beyond their tender ages because of premarital Sex.

Her father told her that premarital Sex would make her a 'cheap article', reduce her value as a person before the male she would sleep with, and to others who would find out. He told her how that she needed to 'close her legs' if she wanted to be respected as a person.

In church, Tolu was told by her Pastors that her body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and premarital Sex would drive the Holy Spirit away from her because God does not like sin and cannot live in a sinful house. She was told about girls being possessed by demons through Sex. She heard about 'soul ties'.

She got curious and a little scared. This Sex was a really serious thing o. Her Salvation was too valuable to lose and so she would guard it valiantly. And she had learned that closing her legs was a very huge part of guarding her salvation.

Sometimes, when she listened to these admonitions, she would have this mental picture of salvation running from between her legs in an unguarded moment. Salvation seemed to reside between her legs.

In university, she heard again about Sex. This time, from some people, it was about how Sex made them glow, expand their minds, become more mature and helped them enjoy life generally. This time, she saw people who used Postinor 2 and condoms. There was so little tales of unwanted pregnancies. This sexually active people, especially ladies, did not look old and haggard. Alot of them graduated, got married to the guys they had been having Sex with. Even the ones with a long history of abortion had one or two kids.

Again, she got really curious, but she continued to 'guard her salvation (close her legs).

She met Dayo in her final year. He was tall, dark, charming. They started dating. Three months into the relationship, she went to his house one Friday. On the Saturday night of her stay there, in the midst of plenty cuddling, as they say, 'one thing led to another' and they had Sex.

As she sat in church on Sunday morning and the Pastor talked about how some ladies who had committed sexual immorality had so brazenly come into the presence of God as if they had done nothing wrong,Tolu thought again of the event of the night before. She was attacked with different emotions. She really wanted to say the Sex felt horrible, dirty and demeaning. But she couldn't. She couldn't run away from the fact even though she was ashamed to admit it even to herself, that the Sex felt good. Really good. She was too ashamed to admit even to herself that her curiosity had been satisfied.

Even as they had talked and cuddled last night, in a very tiny corner of her mind, she had allowed her curiosity render her very relaxed and ready for whatever would come. Somehow, she knew.

And that knowledge made her feel terribly guilty, and naked. As naked she was sure, as Adam and Eve must have felt when they stood before God in the garden of Eden after they disobeyed Him.

In this tormented state of mind, the service dragged painfully slowly to a much desired close.

Almost throughout the week, she was miserable. At first she could not pray, evangelist, she didn't even come for the midweek service because she felt she couldn't stand before this holy God in her nakedness. And then later, like a child peeping into a house it had been forbidden to enter, she started to beg God to forgive her, to take her back. She cried and prayed, but still, she felt no relief, no sign that she was forgiven and accepted.

All this continued until a friend invited her to a program in her fellowship for singles which would hold that Saturday. She reluctantly agreed after being begged repeatedly by Sarah to attend.

That Saturday, Tolu and Sarah arrived late, in the middle of the message. The speaker was reading from 1 Corinthians 1:28-31.

'He chose what the world looks down and despises.........inorder to destroy what the world thinks is important. This means that no one can boast in God's Presence. But God has brought you into union with Christ Jesus and God has made Christ to be our wisdom. By him we are put right with God: we become God's holy people and are set free. So then as scripture says, 'whoever wants to boast must boast of what God has done'.

When she got home, these sentences from the text kept dancing in her mind repeatedly.

'This means that no one can boast in his presence..... '
' whoever wants to boast must boast of what the Lord has done'.

Somehow, this words forced her to review her life. Then she realized that all her life as a believer, she had never fully understood what it really meant that she was saved by grace alone through faith alone. She never really understood, even though she believed and had heard many times that righteousness is a gift, is not earned and can never be earned.

All along, her virginity and good behavior, but especially her virginity had been her Idol. Her 'extra assurance', her ticket before God. As Adam and Eve sought solace, shelter, right standing with God by wrapping those fig leaves round their nakedness, so did her virginity become what she relied on as a source of her right standing with God. An extra garment. She never really understood what it meant to be dressed in God's righteousness alone.......

Until the fig leaves, the flimsy garment of virginity was torn. Now she stood completely naked. With no clothes to boast of. Now she was beginning to get it. She needed no extra garment to cover her in the first place. She wasn't meant to. They were not her glory. Christ was. He was her glory, her righteousness, her purity, her source of dignity. She needed no other garment. Christ was, is, and would forever be enough.

And the best thing about this Garment was, NOTHING could ever pull Him off her.

Nothing at all!