1 CORINTHIANS 6:19-20 – Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

THEME OF THE DAY. BOUGHT BY THE FATHER FOR THE SON. Every healthy Christian longs to be sinless. We yearn with the heart of the Apostle Paul for the day of full deliverance – “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 7:24-25; 8:23). And some day will be that day, but that day is not today. Today, this day, we are called to do battle against sin, not to achieve sinless perfection, but certainly to sin less in the pursuit of holiness (2 Corinthians 7:1). How do we do that? Here are two spiritual helps to fight the good fight and regularly defeat the sin we still have and hate.

First, accept full responsibility for our sin. We sin because we choose to sin. We will get nowhere in the battle against sin if we blame shift. We must own our sin. David Powlison in his excellent book, God’s Grace in Your Suffering, wrote “Saying that our sins afflict us like a madness is not to justify or excuse our derangement. Your sin is your sin. When you get your back up in an argument, when you vegetate in front of a television, when you spin a fantasy world of romance or eroticism, when you grumble about the weather, when you obsess about your performance in the eyes of significant others, when you worry, nag, or gossip, you do these things. No evil twin, no hormone, no satanic agency, and no aspect of your upbringing can take credit or blame for the works of your flesh. You do it. You want to do it but you don’t really want to, when you come to your senses. And you do come to your senses. The conflicted dual consciousness of the Christian always lands on its feet, sooner or later. Yes, you drift off and commit sin. But you turn back to the Lord because you are more committed to Him. And you are more committed to Him because He is absolutely committed to you, and the new creature is already at work in you.” His insight leads us to the second help in learning to sin less in living out of the Christian life.

Remember that we are not our own. In today’s scripture, the Apostle Paul is reminding the Corinthians and us, it is illogical and a contradiction for a Christian to seek to fulfill the lusts of the flesh. Why? We are not our own. We have surrendered our rights to live sinfully and selfishly. We have been bought by God the Father to be given to the Son as trophies of His grace. When temptation of any kind comes, if we would immediately remind ourselves, “Wait a minute. I don’t have to, nor can I, fulfill the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life because I belong to Jesus Christ who conquered all three for me”, we would find ourselves living more in spiritual victory and freedom than we may currently experience (1 John 2:15-17).

Sinless perfection. Someday. And oh do we long for the day! But until then, we must fight the good fight against our remaining sin. It is a fight we may successfully and consistently win if we do two things; make no excuses for our sin and then remember we don’t have to sin because we are not our own anymore. We are the divine property of the Lord Jesus who makes us more than conquerors over any and all sin.

PRAYER: “Father, help me remember I am not my own and in doing so, live selfless as the One who now owns me.”

QUOTE: “We go far defeating sin when we realize we have no right to fulfill sinful desires because we are not our own.”