PASTOR’S CORNER, Jeremy Harris, First Southern Baptist Church, Liberal
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. 13 And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. ~ Romans 6:12-13
Chuck Norris has to register his hands and feet as weapons of mass destruction. However the rest of us have probably not ever considered ourselves as weapons. Paul in his letter to the church in Rome makes it clear that our bodies and even parts of our bodies are being used (with our permission) as either weapons for UNrighteousness or as weapons of righteousness. Some translations use the word instrument here, but the greek word Paul uses literally means weapon.
Here’s the picture that Paul is painting…when we let sin reign in our lives, we offer our bodies as weapons to sin. Not sure what that means? Consider the last time you chose to be selfish, hateful, prideful, lazy, crass, etc… Do these actions affect anyone other than you? We often think that they don’t. If we look around though I think we will see a wave of hurt, sorrow, and broken bridges all around us. It’s like someone took our moment of sinfulness like a sword and swing it in a circle. Our actions have consequences and more often than not those consequences leak out into the world around us.
However, Paul offers us some hope in the next verse. Just like we can offer our bodies to sin, we can offer our bodies to God instead. Look at what Paul tells the church in Galatia should be growing in the life of a Christian… 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things. ~Galatians 5:22
When we offer ourselves to God, He swings us like a sword for righteousness and the things that our lives produce are things that I think we all want to see more of in our world. More love, more joy, more peace, more patience, more kindness, more goodness, more faithfulness, more gentleness, and more self-control. I hope that my life is producing these things and that the people around me are affected by these fruits of God working in my life as I offer my body to Him to use as His weapon!
So, Christians … who are you going to offer your life to?
