As U. S. citizens, we love our freedom. We stand up for our right to Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Bear Arms, Freedom to Assemble: all great ideals to stand up for and we don’t want to lose them. Could it be though that we love freedom so much that we don’t realize that when we aren’t careful, our ‘freedom to’ may put us in bondage?
When it comes to sexual freedom, how many of us have been taken down a road riddled with pain and consequences…sexually transmitted disease, addiction to pornography, abortion, infidelity. This is bondage because we let sexual desires, sexual sin, lead us where we should not go. We wish we could go back and start over and we wish we wouldn’t have succumbed to sexual temptation which then led to other sins. But we can’t go back and erase what we did, it’s bound to us. How can we ever be free from the memories of sin that we now regret? We’re in bondage.
For Christians, we need to think twice when we believe we have ultimate control and freedom over our bodies. Paul in 1 Corinthians says to us: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you? You are not your own.”
Paul also says to the Corinthians, “…he who sins sexually, sins against his own body.” Could this be why when we let our sexual whims take us wherever it feels good, that there is some consequence to pay? When we unite with another in sin, we are debasing Christ. When we sin sexually and it leads to abortion, we create bondage in our minds, in our hearts, in our memories that can be there forever. We feel guilt and shame because our bodies are not our own, our bodies belong to Christ.
So if we could only remember Paul’s advice, “Honor God with your body,’ we could experience freedom from memories that convict, freedom from consequences of our sin, freedom to know that we are pure in His sight.
Shining The Light 