We have this tremendous capacity to excuse our behavior. In August 1986 Newsweek magazine had a cover story on Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy. He was in the news because the recent publicity over pornography has focused on his kind of magazine. It had also come to light that the circulation of Playboy had dropped by fifty percent in the last six years. It was not much of a victory, though – the former readers were turning to raunchier stuff.
In this article, Hefner’s lifestyle was described. He estimates he has slept with over a thousand women. When he met his long-lasting girlfriend, she hesitated to date him, because she had never gone out with anyone over 24. He said that was O.K., because neither had he.
Hefner never had just one girlfriend. Besides the one-night stands, he has one mistress in his Chicago mansion and another in his Los Angeles mansion. He had only one requirement for them: fidelity. They were never allowed to see another man. As he put it, “I guess I’m just a puritan boy at heart.”
Mr. Hefner does not practice faithfulness, but he expects it. God holds us accountable for what we expect. Don’t ignore sin just because you are susceptible to it, or because it hasn’t touched your home yet. Learn to recognize God’s standards, and try to live them.