For those who want clear-cut, black-and-white boundary lines around their marriage bed, here’s a safe-but-not-suffocating list of dos and don’ts:

Do:

• Invite God into your bedroom and ask for His blessing on your marriage bed.

• Freely engage in sex with one another as an act of worship toward our Creator.

• Ask yourself, “Was this forbidden in Scripture?” if you’re inspired to do something a little different or daring. If not, then you’ve got a yellow light. (Proceed with caution.)

• Communicate your thoughts to make sure your spouse is comfortable with your new idea. If so, then you’ve got a green light! (Go for it!)

• Always make sure your spouse feels completely safe in your presence at all times.

• Enjoy the passion and intimacy you share without guilt, shame, or inhibition!

Don’t:

• Ask for or blindly receive other people’s opinions about what’s okay for you and your marriage bed.  Again, this is between you, your spouse, and God.

• Make assumptions that your spouse should totally be on board with something just because you are comfortable with it.  Everyone gets to define his or her own comfort zone!

• Belittle your partner with negative terms such as “prude,” “stick-in-the-mud,” or “wet blanket,” or the opposite extreme such as “kinky” or “perverted.”

All sexual issues can be categorized in one of two ways. They are either a matter of 1) biblical mandate, or of 2) personal conscience. If God spoke against a particular act, then it’s certainly a matter of biblical mandate, and we’ll want to honor that for our own sake, for the sake of our marriage, and for the sake of our relationship with God Himself. However, if it’s not mentioned in Scripture, it’s a matter of personal conscience. Not someone else’s conscience, but yours. You get to decide if it’s okay with you, if it’s pleasurable to you, and if it’s edifying to your relationship.

So if you want to dress up to visually stimulate your spouse, no one is stopping you, especially not God! If you want to swing from the chandelier, just make sure the fixture will support you! If you want to have sex multiple times per week, or even multiple times per day on occasion, knock yourselves out!  In God’s economy, there are no limitations placed on pleasure and passion!

PRAYER: Lord, remind me as often as necessary that enjoying freedom in the marriage bed is exactly what you desire for us!

Read the previous post in this series here: Part 1.