1 Corinthians Chapter 6 Verse 12

• The Corinthian church was taking Paul’s preaching on liberty to the extreme and applying their freedom in areas neither Paul, nor the Lord, ever intended. Why?  Because sin has consequence.  (Romans 6:23) Sin brings forth death.  (Hosea 8:7) Sow to the wind and you will reap the whirlwind…destruction.  Today matters.  What you do. What decisions you make…today matters!  Your tomorrow is essentially under the power of your decisions today.  And Paul is saying and we ought to receive this…live in such a way as to remain free.  What does that mean…under the power of the Holy Spirit of God.  Not under the power of sin.
• Sin and the flesh are cruel masters. Living in the flesh will beat your life into a submissive hellish reality.  Your heart won’t be free to be filled with joy.  You won’t achieve what you want to achieve.  You won’t have what you desire to have.  And you won’t be who you want to be.  Why?  Because the flesh called the shots yesterday and now today you are subject, brought under the power of it…how?    Right now.  Today matters!
• All things are Jesus has given His life, lost His life, that I might have mine…all things are lawful because the law has been fulfilled in Him…I can do what I want with my day, I am free…not free to sin…free from sin…but not all things are helpful.  The word in the Greek is fantastic.  It is symphero.  Sounds like symphony…not all things bring me into God’s frequency…God’s will…God’s blessings…God’s provision…not all things bring me together with the God that loves me…and the God that I adore. 
• It also looks like simple-hero to me. I can do whatever I want with my day and with my life but God has placed in me the Spirit of a hero.  The Holy Spirit Himself and in that I truly do have super powers.  Not like we see on the big screen…those powers are external and they are for the exaltation of the character…the super power you have through the Holy Spirit is agape!  Love without boundary and without limiter.    So how do you learn to fly?  Certainly not through the flesh….You know, I wrote this down a few weeks back and I want to share it with you now…coming to grips with your own selfishness, your own self focus, is perhaps the sharpest corner a person can ever turn in their life.
• This is when you become filled with grace. You become a soldier of profit for the Kingdom of God and for the greatness and helping of others.  You drop your agendas, your needs for them to see and live and talk and act like you want them to…and you just walk with them.  (I’m talking about brothers and sisters in Christ for the moment.  How can two walk together lest they be in agreement!) 
• Here’s how you can take your temperature on maturity. When someone tells you you’ve hurt them or done something that somehow harms them…is your first response, “No I didn’t.”  That is a perfect watermark for maturity of heart and truly that maturity is indeed agape.  Love does not seek its own.  The mature, no matter what, will take responsibility and instead of deflection or defense will seek to serve and love.
• You stop being such a hindrance and weight on others in the Lord…and you just become the willing stepping stone that gets them one more place closer to the King of Kings. But SO few Christians, and I’m telling you FEW, ever turn the corner of their own self importance to get there…thank you God for the handful I have encountered in my life….
• And to the world, you become like Christ. A pointer and a beacon to God.  A light in the darkness…love is so different than what you find in the world.  Men lulling women into a sleep disguised as trust to take advantage of them…people selling capitalistic intentions shrouded as kindness to better themselves through your relationship with them…the world is full of people who have agendas and want to use you to achieve them…and after that happens to you about a thousand times…which is by the time you’re about 20…you almost forget what righteous/selfless love looks like…then comes a Christian under the power of the Holy Spirit…not any other…and its like someone turned the oxygen on again…Simple Hero…
• I can do whatever I want with my life, with my day, with my attitude but the Bible says be on guard…not all things help…and if it doesn’t help…well it’s the opposite. Wake up if that is you…turn the corner you’ve been staring at for 10, 20, 30, 50 years!  Give your heart to Jesus, man.  For God’s sakes…honor Him…stop honoring yourself!  Then you’ll truly get somewhere…
• As a child of God, (are you, be a) I am a goal oriented person. What’s the goal?  Honor God.  My goal is to one day stand before Jesus and as my life is put on blast, my heart, my attitude, my ministry to others, my goal is to hear Him say, “WELL done good and faithful servant.”  Now there are things that I could do that would be all right, just fine, not sin…but do they progress me towards my goal?  If not then whatever it is it’s taking me away from my primary goal…not helpful.  Not hero-full.  (

1 Corinthians Chapter 6 Verses 13 – 14

• Paul is probably linking carnal urges by putting these statements together. The Corinthian church perhaps had introduced logic that if I want it, I should have it.  I’m hungry, so I eat…apply that widely…but Paul reminds them that what they ought to do is remember the Lord.  And these two being linked…food restrictions have been raised therefore all carnal restrictions have been raised…Paul put that down by saying the food and stomach are goners but not your body…and you say how is that possible…
• Because we are essentially transformers! HA!  Once you’re saved you and your future are definitely more than meets the eye!  1 Corinthians 15:50-55.  This body will somehow raise up, just as Jesus ascended on high…but it will be changed…it will “put on” immortality…and Paul says and uses this to draw a difference between what they eat and what they do there in Corinth. 
• Paul says here, “God raised up the Lord…” Who did raise Jesus from the dead?  Well if you said God the Father, you’re correct.  Galatians 1:1, Acts 2:32. However, if you said, “Jesus raised Jesus…,” you’re also correct.  John 2:19, John 10:18.  And if you said, “The Holy Spirit raised Him…,” you too are correct.  Romans 8:11, 1 Peter 3:18.  How is this all symphonic?  Simply because the resurrection of Jesus announces the active involvement of the Triune God! 

1 Corinthians Chapter 6 Verses 15 – 17

• What does that last bit mean? It means that what you’re looking for in fulfilling your worldly passions are actually eternally more satisfied in close relationship with God.  Spiritual fulfillment trumps carnal satisfaction a million fold…

1 Corinthians Chapter 6 Verses 18 – 20

• You are not your own…any respectful person would take care of something they have that wasn’t theirs. If I loan you my car and you trash it…or if you return it in worse shape at all than when I loaned it to you…guess what…I’m really going to have a problem loaning it to you again…but if I can trust you with my car, I can trust you with my home…God is the same.  And I have His Ferrari!  (This body! HA!! Actually, I told a friend of mine that I had the body of a Greek God…and he then informed me that Buddha was not a Greek God!  HA!)
• Bought with a price…the price was high, it cost God everything to give you everlasting and eternal life…but remember as you leave out of here…you were indeed bought. Paid in full.  Once I buy something, its mine…legal claim…the strength of the law confirms that it is mine…nothing the store can do any longer to lay a claim on what it is I have paid for…and look, that is you as well.  Walk in the grace of God.  There’s nothing more to add to get God’s love.  God loves you with a perfect and complete love…why?  You are fully paid for…
• Paul says recognize now who and what we are…He says our body, us…we are now the temple of the Holy Spirit…that word is naos it the Greek and it literally means the Holy of Holies…How is it that you deserve such a thing…how is it that even the one you have been beefing with could deserve such a thing…simple answer, you don’t…but God has gifted His love to you, to me, to the person you treat poorly, to the person you count as your enemy…turn the corner of selfishness, be filled with grace, become a soldier of profit for the Kingdom of God…join yourself spiritually to the Lord, one spirit with Him…and be free.