MY Rights

Good Morning!

I love my children … I really do! All five of them bring pleasant memories to my mind. I remember the concerts, the ball games, the performances, the awards dinners – all those things that accompany children who are self-motivated and achievers. I also remember the classic battles around the time they began to mature … you know, when they were just learning to spread their wings but thought they could take full flight. Usually the argument would end with “I can’t wait until I’m eighteen and you can’t tell me what to do!” Ahhh – the age of majority – when a person is considered by the law to be an adult. Time, I think, has taught that reaching eighteen wasn’t as liberating as one might think for the responsibilities that accompany adulthood sometimes are more onerous than freeing.

For the Christian, receiving grace from God is fantastic. We are free from the curse of the law … but along with that freedom comes a great responsibility. We now are representatives of God … people look to us for what it means to be a believer. Paul understood that and also saw the church at Corinth wasn’t exactly setting the right example. So he wrote:

1 Corinthians 6:12-20 (New International Version, ©2011)
Sexual Immorality
12 “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything. 13 You say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.” The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! 16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”[a] 17 But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.[b]
18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. 19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
Footnotes:
a. 1 Corinthians 6:16 Gen. 2:24
b. 1 Corinthians 6:17 Or in the Spirit

Now I know none of you are caught up in sexual immorality. But the lesson is still appropriate for any sin that might cloud the message you bring. It can be little things. It being tax time, a “little” thing might be inflating your giving numbers. Only you and your tax accountant know – right? But what if that tax accountant is a fledgling Christian … or a non-believer? What does he or she see?

When we receive Christ Jesus as Lord, we bind ourselves to Him. Our body becomes His body. We represent Him in everything we say and do. We may have turned eighteen and can do anything we want … but we still name the Name of Jesus wherever we go. So we need to remember to honor God with our human bodies by being aware of our impact on those around us. I know you will.

Agape’


Mr. Jim