Some of the worst decisions I’ve seen young women make (or women of any age, for that matter) involve men. That’s because so many of us find our worth in men. We find our validation in men. We seek our fulfillment in men.

My sweet young friends, you are worth so much more than that. You are indescribably precious in the sight of God. Those are more than words. They are truth. This truth competes daily with the lies our culture feeds you.

How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! – Psalm 139:17

Men will lie to you, and your own heart will lie to you. Your heart may tell you that you must compromise your purity to retain the attention of a man. But the man for whom you compromise is no real man at all.

He is an idolator. He is greedy. He is self-centered. He is disrespectful. He is a user. And he will discard you when you no longer suit his purposes.

Run from sexual immorality! “Every sin a person can commit is outside the body.” On the contrary, the person who is sexually immoral sins against his own body.  – 1 Corinthians 6:18

He may tell you you’re already married in spirit. That is a lie. He may tell you it’s okay because you’re getting married. That is a lie as well. If ceremony were not important, Jesus Himself would not have implied the necessity of a ceremony when He said, “‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’” (Matthew 19:5).

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body. – 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

My friends, when you give away your body, you give away pieces of your heart that you can never retrieve. A woman, after all, is incapable of giving away herself apart from her heart. And when you’re a professing Christ-follower, you also corrupt the temple where your Lord dwells. Would you perform such acts in a sanctuary? Of course not! But that is exactly what happens when you commit sexual sin.

Purity matters. And technology has given us a thousand new ways of violating our purity. It can be done without so much as a touch. This, too, is a sin against our body and a sin against our Lord. And the Hollywood nude photo scandal has shown us just how safe those private photos are. You cannot outrun them. They will follow you everywhere. Just ask Jennifer Lawrence.

The choices you make today will affect you for the rest of your life. I cannot count how many women I’ve seen be emotionally discarded and destroyed because they undervalued themselves and overvalued men.

If you have fallen for the lies, it’s not too late. Reclaim your purity, and recommit yourself to Christ. You can break the cycle and begin to find healing. And someday, Lord willing, you will find a man after God’s own heart who will love you as Christ loves His church, which He would never dream of defiling.