Can't tell you how many times I've read this verse and tried to make it about food. But, excuse my point blank language, this is about sex.
I think we'd all agree that some of the most famously messed up lives are some of the most famously talented people - actors. Grueling hours, accessing deep emotions, pretending you're someone else so deeply that you forget who you really are. And then, so deeply moved by their performance, we model our reality from a piece of fiction we watch on a flat screen. Amazing.
And then thinking "I'm just acting," we enter an act so spiritually black and white that we fail to realize that our actions affect the whole body of Christ! ...that even pricking your little finger with a needle causes the whole body to recoil.
When I was 24 or 25, I was a nanny in Massachusetts. I was set up on a blind date with a guy in his young thirties, wealthy, and named Biff. (Yes, really.) I expected to at least be taken for coffee. No. We just drove. He was an adamant thinker... and lost. We talked about pretty much everything including sex. He couldn't believe I CHOSE to be a virgin.
For the next few days, we had several phone conversations. His argument, and I do mean ARGUEment, was that there was no way I could possibly pick a successful long term partner for marriage without knowing how they were in bed. I rather surprised him by saying that my mom had explained that the beauty of virginity is that you get to experience everything together for the first time... a beautiful private adventure. He all but yelled, "You ask you mom if they didn't have major problems..." I said, "OK, I will."
(Looking back, I realize that most wealthy blue bloods have almost no relationship with their parents until they are adults and most not even then. They confide in their nannies. So the mere fact that I even had honest conversations with my parents was probably totally foreign to him.)
So, we hung up and I dialed home. After my mom got over the shock that I was even having a conversation like this with a guy, she gave me a totally honest answer.
Were there difficulties? "Yes. But that's the beauty of keeping intimacy within marriage. You have a lifetime commitment in which to work it out - together. Being vulnerable in a safe relationship means working things out - together - and that brings you even closer in the long run. It requires honesty and trust. Going through any kind of difficulty as one brings you closer together. Makes your marriage stronger. You both win in the end." (Not her exact words, but the best I can do 30 years later.)
I hung up the phone realizing what a treasure I had in my parents.
I dialed Biff back. "So what did she say?"
I told him.
He said, "I would tear you up in bed."
I explained something like I wanted to be cherished in bed, not torn up.
He said something that changed my life forever. "You base EVERYthing you believe on the Bible!"
I thought about it and heard myself say these words to him. "Yes. I do. I base my whole life on knowing Jesus and what the Bible says. So far there has not been one thing that the Bible didn't answer. Everything I read works. If it didn't, I'd be wasting my time.
It's either all true or it isn't true at all.
If ever it totally fails, I'll walk away. But it doesn't.... You base everything on what you want, and that changes all the time. That's not big enough for me. I need something more than that. C.S. Lewis says that either Jesus was really who He said he was, or He was a lunatic or a liar. I've met him. He's real. "
Sometimes being forced to verbalize what you believe becomes the most profound and needed
.defining moment.
I'm not gonna lie. The guy was good looking. I did wonder if I was missing something by not being torn up in bed. But after 21 years of marriage and purity, that viewpoint looks like a filthy rag someone is trying to sell me saying it's better than my precious pearl...
Pearls grow in a protected, private environment that may not look appealing from the outside to others. In fact, pearls grow from an irritant, a grain of sand. But given time and privacy, that becomes the priceless treasure.
Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. 14Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power.
Face value. My body is the most blessed when my body stays connected to Christ. My physical body matters to him. My physical body has a purpose so much greater than just sex. Sure, sex in the context of marriage is great. He created it that way.
But there's a bigger purpose for my body and how I live in it. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?
Christ wants me. I'm part of HIS body. I'm part of his bride. And he takes sex VERY seriously.
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?
May it never be! 16Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH.” 17But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
Sex is a spiritual act! God says, "Flee immorality." Put quite simply, RUN! RUN HARD! RUN IMMEDIATELY!!!!!!!
Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.
This has me stumped. Envy? Outside the body? Greed? Of course, what I envy is not what's inside of me. I envy something outside of me. I envy someone's house? Even if I got their house somehow, it would still be outside of my body. Hmmm...
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.
You're connected to something bigger than just yourself. Everything you do effects something bigger. You separate yourself, there are repercussions to everyone else.
Read it again, slowly.
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.
This statement is written to those with pure AND immoral pasts. This is NOT about past sins in the sense that we're doomed if immorality was where we came from. But it IS about past sins in terms of the high price God paid to deliver from it! This is about how we live with Christ. How we view our bodies now that we belong to him by our own choice.
This is BLACK and WHITE. Some things in the Bible are more subtle, and this part about the power of how we offer our bodies and what happens when we have sex holds a lot of mystery. But it is still black and white.
HOWEVER, the point is not what we are to stay away from. THE POINT IS TO SEE WHAT WE ARE A PART OF!!!!! CHRIST! He actually becomes one with us!
Emmanuel. God WITH us. In union WITH us.
Lord, it's Christmas again. Let me GET this! Let me walk in what is beneficial for US together. I can't walk with you and expect to stay aloof from the body of Christ. What happens to them happens to me. Break my heart for what breaks yours. Let me learn to glorify you in my body. Forgive me for not seeing my body as truly valuable to you. You paid such a high price for it. This is so beyond how I view myself. You place so much more value on me than I do. I'm not sure exactly how to handle that this morning. Thank you. That's all I can come up with that comes close to a response. Thank you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht5QvAMDMzE
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