Julia Roberts exploded on the worldwide cinema scene with her million dollar smile as the ‘hooker with a heart of gold’ in ‘Pretty Woman’. She had already achieved some recognition for her role in ‘Steel Magnolias’, but ‘Pretty Woman’ launched her to international stardom. With a wink and a nod the fairy tale story paints over the ugly reality of prostitution and the nastiness of the business of selling one’s body for sex. But that’s not surprising since we live in a world that loves lying to itself about sin, especially sexual sin.

When the Bible talks about sex there’s no effort to hide what it is; whether describing the beauty of sex within a legitimate monogamous marriage (Hebrews 13:4), or the ugliness of stolen virtue through sexual promiscuity or even prostitution (Genesis 38:14-18). Our translations of Hebrew 13:4 and talking about Judah casually having sex with a woman he thought was a prostitute reflect our own struggles with being honest about our sexuality. Sometimes it seems we try to be holier than God on the subject. We don’t have to be crude or vulgar, in fact we must not (Ephesians 5:3-4), but neither should we gloss over the reality of sex. ‘Pretty Woman’ was actually a lot of both; vulgar and glossy at the same time.

Anyone who has doubts that the Bible is bluntly direct on the subject of sex has never read the book of Hosea. As we pointed out yesterday God instructed His servant, the prophet Hosea, to marry a prostitute who would be unfaithful to him as an illustration of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God (Hosea 1:2). Three times in the verse God used a very strong word for the act of sexual immorality. Later he rebuked the nation for rejoicing as they played the harlot “on every threshing floor” (Hosea 9:1-2). Their harlotry was both physical and spiritual.

Since God could talk about sex and sexuality in direct, even blunt, language, it’s important for us to talk about it like adults too. But that doesn’t mean we can talk dirty, or even worse, practice sexual immorality, as if God doesn’t care. But there’s something even worse than either of those. Turning our worship of God into an act of spiritual harlotry.

Think carefully about the worship we offer to God. Is it pure and undefiled before God according to His will, or, driven by selfish motivations and all about what we want? Do we offer worship according to His instructions or according to our own desires. It’s easy to switch the two, especially because, like sex, we don’t want to talk about it like adults. But, even a dazzling smile doesn’t make it pretty if our worship is nothing but a pursuit of what makes us feel good.