“You are not your own. You were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your bodies” (1 Corinthians 5:19-20).
A story is told of a couple who were incredibly unhappy with their marriage. As a result they continued to drift apart and both turned to online chat forums to deal with their frustrations. While the husband chatted online at work, the wife chatted from home between taking care of her 6 months old and two years old kids. Both of them found a willing online listener who patiently listened to their marriage issues.
Eventually both began to get attached to their cyber friend and felt that they had finally met their real soul mate. As time passed they decided to meet up with their online chat partner. They arranged to meet at a coffee shop where both would be waiting with a red rose at a table. Lo and behold, the couple discovered that their perfect partner was their own spouse. Instead of acknowledging their own mistakes and using this opportunity to rekindle their love for each other, both filed for divorce -with each accusing the other of being unfaithful. Why is it that couples who were once deeply In love suddenly decide to cheat on each other with another person? Why does a man/woman lust after another person’s spouse or entertain sexual fantasies of other people without their knowledge? Why do couples not give their everything to make their marriage work before calling it quits?
The answer is self-centeredness.
Living in a broken world, we have a tendency to be obsessed with our self instead of God. Although sex is a gift from God that needs to be used within the confines of a marriage relationship, some how or other, we abuse it and use it to fulfill our own sinful cravings, without even taking into consideration the value, dignity and the image of God in others.
We are not our own. So, Jesus came to save us from ourselves.
In Matthew 5:29-30 Jesus says, if your eye causes you to sin gouge it out and if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. Gouging out our eye or cutting off our hand will not stop us from committing sexual sins in our minds. So it is obvious that Jesus is not talking in a literal sense. Since self-centeredness arises in the heart (Matthew 15:19), amputation or gouging cannot cure adultery or lust,
Only God-centeredness can.
May we take radical steps to live God-centered lives with our bodies because we belong to God in life and in death.
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Samuel Williams is co-founder & content director at Fluid. He is also the teaching pastor at Avenue Community Church in Toronto, Canada.