You Belong to God
Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. – 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 NKJV.
Listen to this news report. “Gambling, robbery, sexual immorality, and violence is prevalent. Half of all children are born out of wedlock; purity and fidelity to the marriage vow are sneered out of fashion. Corruption in politics is rampant. The world is broken.” That news report was from the year 1694, but it sounds like it could have been a news report from 2008.
Immorality is not a new thing, and it has been a problem for as long as there have been human beings. We look around our world today, and we know that there are huge problems of all kinds, and sometimes it looks like the whole world is going to hell in a handbasket.
When our friends and neighbors are involved in immoral activities, we may come to think that because everyone around us is doing what is wrong, that it is okay for us to do those things too. We begin to slide into the gray area between black and white, and before long we are closer to the black than we are the white. Before long we are not coming to church, we stop reading out Bibles, we stop praying, we stay away from other Christians, and we may not think it; but down there in our heart of hearts, we think that God is okay with it, because He hasn‘t struck us dead with lightning or something else.
Let me remind you what God thinks about that kind of thinking and living. He says, “You are not your own. You were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” You as a child of God are not your own. You belong to God. Your body belongs to God. Your spirit belongs to God. You are accountable to God.
When you stop coming to church, when you don’t read your Bibles, when you don’t pray, when you don’t live like you ought to live – you are not getting away with something. No, you are shooting yourself in the foot. Because you are accountable to God and God is not deceived. As the apostle Paul says in Galatians 6:7-8, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.”
We live in a society where no one wants to admit to their own mistakes or to their faults. We see so many politicians wanting to take credit for the good things that are done or that occur and then when something bad happens or goes wrong – they are more than ready to point their finger at someone else! We are ready to do that too, but it simply will not work with God, don’t be deceived about that because, “God is not mocked.” Paul says, “… for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption….”
How do we sow to our flesh? We sow to our flesh any time that we sin. We sow to our flesh by doing what we want to do instead of what God wants us to do (Things like going to church, reading the Bible, praying, witnessing, serving, etc.). When we spend money selfishly that should have been given to the Lord, we are sowing to the flesh. When we look at the wrong things, tell lies, steal, blaspheme God by the way we live our lives we are sowing to the flesh.
Instead of sowing to the flesh and reaping harvest after harvest of bad things we must instead sow more to the Spirit, to reap more of what the Spirit has for us. “You are not your own. You were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
(Because Christ has paid the price through His blood for your redemption from sin you are not your own, you belong to God. You are accountable to God for the way you live your life.)