Process to Freedom

1 Corinthians 6:16 says that sex joins two people. Matthew 5:28 says that if we have even looked with lust on another person, we have committed adultery with them in our heart.

For those of us who have past nonmarital sexual partners or have a sexual dependency of some sort, is there any good news?? Is there any way to separate what has been joined through sin?

I was once “one flesh” with those I had sex with. But Jesus’ blood made a way to separate what was once joined through sexual sin.

As it says in Romans 6:3-7, we were buried with Christ through baptism into death, raised with Christ to live a new life, and set free from sin (no longer one flesh with past sexual partners, but united with the Lord and one with Him in Spirit).

Video:“Breaking Soul Ties” (1 Cor 6:13b-17; Romans 6:3-7)

Consecrating my Body

My body does not belong to any previous sexual partner. My body does not belong to me! I was bought with a price by Christ; I am no longer my own. I am set apart, consecrated as a temple of the Holy Spirit! (1 Corinthians 6:18-20)

I had realized that some of my body parts had been sexualized in environments of lust – a sexual comment made, a “taking” of that body part, or I had offered that body part to the person. I realized that some of those lustful comments had lingered into the present, where when I saw that body part, I remembered the person who had made a sexual comment about it. In a sense, that body part still had a brand from that person. My body had been united to those people.

So I consecrated my body to God in a very counter-cultural symbolic act. Every part of my body that had been sexualized by a comment or touch; that was once ‘owned’ by someone else when we became one, I touched each part and said, “This ____ is Yours, God. It is not my own. I give this to You and honor You with my body”. I then touched my face and said, “My beauty is not my own. I was bought with a price. My face and my beauty belong to You. I choose to honor You with my face and my beauty”¹.

_{[1] This theme continues on Day 34.}