Jim Burns - Accept Nothing Less: Gods Best for Your Body, Mind, and Heart. Gods Best for Your Body, Mind, and Heart

ACCEPT NOTHING LESS

Other Resources by
Jim Burns

Confident Parenting
Confident Parenting DVD Kit
Creating an Intimate Marriage
Creating an Intimate Marriage Audiobook
Creating an Intimate Marriage DVD Kit
The Purity Code
The Purity Code Audio Resource
Teaching Your Children Healthy Sexuality
Teaching Your Children Healthy Sexuality Parent/Child Combo Pack
Teaching Your Children Healthy Sexuality DVD Kit

JIM BURNS

ACCEPT NOTHING LESS

GODS BEST FOR YOUR BODY, MIND, AND HEART

Accept Nothing Less
Copyright 1991, 1995, 2008
Jim Burns

Newly edited and updated.

Previously published as Radical Respect, Harvest House Publishers, 1991, and Radical Love, Regal Books, 1995.

Cover design by Lookout Design, Inc.

Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations identified KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations identified RSV are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. Copyright 1946, 1952, 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations identified TLB are from The Living Bible 1971 owned by assignment by Illinois Regional Bank N.A. (as trustee). Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations identified NLT are taken from the Holy Bible New Living Translation, copyright 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Published by Bethany House Publishers 11400 Hampshire Avenue South Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

Bethany House Publishers is a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Burns, Jim, 1953
Accept nothing less : Gods best for your body, mind, and heart / Jim Burns.
p. cm. (Pure foundations)
Previously published as : Radical respect, 1991 and Radical love, 1995.
Summary: Youth and family authority Jim Burns speaks to teens on sex and relationships. Presents biblical values about honoring God with the body, mind, and heartProvided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-7642-0212-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. TeenagersSexual behaviorJuvenile literature. 2. SexReligious aspectsJuvenile literature. I. Title.

HQ27.B87 2008
241'.66dc22

2008028762

To
Doug Webster and Doug Fields,
friends and co-workers
who by your zeal for life and ministry
challenge me to keep my priorities straight.

Special thanks to
Cathy
for your constant support
and ministry of lending me to others.

Wayne Rice
for planting the seed
to write on this subject so many years ago.

Donna Toberty, Karen Walters, Jill Corey, Carrie Steele, Judy
Hedgren, and Cindy Ward for your incredible help through these years of writing and speaking on this subject.

The Bethany crowd: Kyle Duncan, Jeff Braun, Natasha Sperling, and so many other wonderful people at Bethany House Publishers

Jim Burns , PhD, founded the ministry of HomeWord in 1985 with the goal of bringing help and hope to struggling families. As host of the radio broadcast HomeWord With Jim Burns, which is heard daily in over eight hundred communities, Jims passion is to build God-honoring families through communicating practical truths that will enable adults and young people alike to live out their Christian faith.

In addition to the radio program, Jim speaks to thousands around the world each year through seminars and conferences. He is an award-winning author whose books include The Purity Code, Teaching Your Children Healthy Sexuality, and Confident Parenting.

Jim and his wife, Cathy, and their three daughters and son-in-law live in Southern California.

Contents

Three events in recent years have had a huge influence on my life. One was a rally in Fresno, California; one was at the foot of our nations Capitol; the other was at a high school in Mission Viejo, California.

Fresno, California

The night before the Fresno rally to promote sexual purity, I spoke to 350 somewhat desperate and frightened but enthusiastic parents about how to talk to their kids about sex. That night, I asked how many of them had talked about sex with their parents from a positive, value-centered perspective when they were younger. Exactly twelve hands were raised. A vast majority of the parents had received absolutely no sex education from home, and a few apparently had received negative information.

One man said, On my sixteenth birthday, my mom gave me a set of keys to our car and my dad threw a condom at me and said, Youll need this along with the car keys.

The next night, more than two thousand students jammed into an auditorium that supposedly seated fourteen hundred people. It was a fire marshals nightmare. I challenged the students to make a commitment to sexual purity, to live by something called the Purity Code. Its a kind of experience that goes against the grain of todays culture. When I was finished, I invited them to respond by signing a sexual purity pledge card and bringing it to the front. I watched students literally run forward, and when they would see a friend who had made the same courageous decision and commitment to the Purity Code, they would hug or high-five each other. We now had more than fifteen hundred students crammed into the front of the auditorium, singing and celebrating the huge pile of sexual purity pledge cards on the steps of the stage. Seeing those students respond to a positive, healthy view of sexuality was wonderful.

A reporter from Fox News interviewed me that night and asked, You mean there are still teenagers who actually are excited about sexual purity?

I said, Everybody isnt doing it, and these students will carry a lot less baggage into their marriages because of their courageous decisions.

Ive met thousands of students who have deeply regretted some of the sexually promiscuous decisions in their lives, but I still havent met a person who chose to wait until marriage and regretted that decision.

Washington, D.C.