Good morning!
Welcome to your morning coffee! May our Heavenly Father discipline us, as only He does to only those He loves. Father, we so often and so easily blind to our weaknesses. We are quick to forget the fullness of your commands to us. You have every right to tell us what to do Father, how to live, how to love. You sent Jesus to claim us. You sent Jesus to be the price for our freedom as those who are now and forever slaves to righteousness. Help us to live obedient lives, daily, and desperately dependent on Jesus. In His precious name. Amen.
Your Morning Song: "Second Chance" by Rend Collective
Your Morning Scripture: 1 Corinthians 6:19
...you were bought at a price.
Therefore honor God with your bodies.
...
We were bought at a price. Honor God with our bodies. Very strong commands. But these commands also carry with them the very religious sort of language and tone that we have trained ourselves to "amen" and then ignore.
How can fight against our fleshly instinct to affirm truth in our minds and with our tongues, and then compartmentalize it firmly away from our daily living?
Let's test ourselves. God will help. He will even and often do the testing for us, whether we like it or not. Let's start by digging down into this verse, these commands, and not simply reading past them.
Let's make these commands real. And then let's examine how they might convict us, and how they might also comfort us (likely both, if you are anything like me).
What does it mean that we were bought at a price? Jesus died our death. Actually died. Splinters caught in the skin across His shoulders, sweat stinging their ragged grinding as He carries His cross, which should have been ours. Instead of a beard He now has only bloody, torn cheeks. His face is battered and beaten. His back aches, sore for lack of rest and torn to peices by torture. His hands then nailed to wood, whether by palm or wrist, it is done. His feet are nailed down, one over the other, to the blood-stained wood. His sweat and blood mix with their spit. And later, much later, to make sure He is well and truly dead, they stab Him with a spear.
What does it mean to honor God with our bodies? Do we decry abortion and homosexuality but ignore gluttony and vanity? Do we treat our bodies as our most physically immediate opportunity to obey Him and honor His creation? Do we ignore physical fitness? Do we make it our life goal? Are we eager to obey God with His commands for our bodies, or are we eager to satisfy our own body's desires? Do we get the sleep we need? Do we sleep too much? Do we eat to live or do we live to eat? Do we ignore those in need in our community and buy increasingly expensive clothes and accessories?
Do we live as those who have been bought? Do we live as those who belong to ourselves? Do we live as those who belong to Jesus? Do we daily and desperately honor God with our bodies?
May we, as those bought for a price, honor God with our bodies, which no longer belong to us. May God make us able. May God share His joy with us when we obey Him in this. And may His joy be our strength to continue on.
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