My Body Is for the Lord

“Present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.” (Romans 6:13)

We give our physical members to God and say, “God, You use them.” Then, we also have to keep the temple holy. Paul wrote:

“Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body” (1 Corinthians 6:13)

Today, we call sexual immorality “premarital sex.” But God has not changed His estimate of this sin. The body is not for premarital sex; the body is for the Lord. And then, “the Lord [is] for the body,” too. Isn’t that wonderful? If we give our bodies to the Lord, then the Lord is for our bodies.

Paul was a down to earth man who talked to people about things that really concerned them. He continued:

“Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body” (verse 18)

Many people interpret this passage as a warning about sexually transmitted diseases, such as HIV, gonorrhea, or syphilis. These may certainly be consequences of sexual immorality, but Paul’s teaching means much more than that. We endanger the health of our bodies when we commit any kind of immorality. Many times when Christians seek healing and do not receive it, the root cause is immorality. In most cases, God demands that we go to the root cause, repent of it, and set it aright before we can receive healing from Him.