#DailyDevotion Contrary To Culture, Your Body Is Not Your Own

1 Cor. 6¹⁵Don’t you know your bodies are members of Christ? Now, should I take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! ¹⁶0r don’t you know he who gives himself to a prostitute is one body with her? The Bible says: “The two will be one flesh.” ¹⁷But if you give yourself to the Lord, you are one spirit with Him. ¹⁸Flee from sexual sin. Every other sin a man may do is outside his body. But if he sins sexually, he sins against his own body. ¹⁹0r don’t you know your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, Whom God gives you and Who is in you? You don’t belong to yourselves, ²⁰because you were bought for a price. Then glorify God with your bodies.

For the Christian this ought to be straightforward. However, our culture, politics, schools and even some Churches these sayings of Paul here don’t make any sense. They say it’s your body.  They say sexual sins aren’t hurting anyone as long as it’s consensual. Well apparently they are wrong. You need to change your mind about it as well.

First, your body is not your own. You are a member of Christ Jesus, like his arm or his leg. You wouldn’t join Christ body with a prostitute’s body now would you? When you have sex with someone it’s not just about you. You become one body with that person. Here I must clear up some thinking. It is not the mere act of having sex with someone that makes you married. Sex though does consummate the vows taken in marriage. If there are no vows to be married, you are just having sex. But it is still never just sex. You do become one body with that person. You become one body with that person and every person you have sex with. Having sex with multiple people messes you up. And even if it is just the one, you have become one body with someone you are not married to, and, you don’t know at that point if you ever will be married to that person. This has physical, spiritual, mental and emotional effects upon you that you aren’t supposed to be having and would be having if you were married. St. Paul rightly says, “Every other sin a man may do is outside his body. But if he sins sexually, he sins against his own body.”

When you were baptized you became one spirit with the LORD. Just as when you give yourself to another you become one flesh with them, when you give yourself to the LORD you become one spirit with him. You see, at baptism, Jesus gives you his Holy Spirit. You, your body becomes a temple of the LORD. You don’t belong to yourself anymore. You belong to Jesus. Lest Satan tempt you to saying, “Then I will leave the LORD and have my own body back,” know that if you leave the LORD your body belongs to the devil then. You are not your own. But your true free is in belonging to the LORD Jesus Christ. Now listen, St. Paul says, “you were bought for a price. Then glorify God with your bodies.” Jesus Christ poured out his blood to redeem your body from sin, death and the power of the devil. Earlier Paul said, “The body is not made for sexual sin but for the Lord; and the Lord is for the body. ¹⁴And God, who raised the Lord, will also raise us by His power.” The body that is joined to Christ, God is raising to eternal life on the Last Day. Glorify God then with your body. Do in your body which causes men to praise and thank God for you for that is God’s will for you.

Heavenly Father, give us your Holy Spirit that we may flee sexual immorality and instead glorify you with the body Christ Jesus redeemed with his blood. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.