Saturday, October 13, 2007

1 Corinthians 6:12-14

"“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be enslaved by anything. “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power."

We have many different natural desires. Some desires can seem very strong and nearly overwhelming. But we are never to be brought under the power of our desire for anything. Take food for example. Our bodies (especially our stomachs) were created to require food, and food was made to be eaten. But eventually we will no longer need food nor our stomachs, and they shall both be destroyed. It is lawful for us to eat any kind of food that we can imagine. But it is not helpful to eat a bag of marshmallows for three meals a day. Someone who would eat such an unhealthy (or unhelpful) diet would likely be doing so because of a lack of control. The acceptable desire for white fluffy sweetness has overwhelmed him. So there is a lawful acceptable desire, but then there is also the unhelpful, misuse of the natural desire.

Another natural, lawful desire is the desire for sexual fulfillment. We were created with this desire. But we are not to fulfill that desire through immoral means (i.e. outside of a monogamous, heterosexual marriage relationship). Our bodies were created with the lawful desire, but we may not attempt to fulfill this desire in an unhelpful, unacceptable, unlawful way. Intensifying the importance of this matter is the fact that our bodies are not our own. Our bodies are "for the Lord."

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