Daily Devotion with Pastor Tong Liu: Today's Passage

1 Corinthians 6:12-17

"Everything is permissible for me" - but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me" - but I will not be mastered by anything. "Food for the stomach and the stomach for food" - but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh." But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

Paul specifically pointed out the main principles for Christian living. First, he said that "everything is permissible for me - but not everything is beneficial." This is the principle of doing what's beneficial - Not just to benefit ourselves, but also to glorify God and benefit others. This is an important principle for Christian living: Every time we do something, we must ask ourselves whether it will glorify God and benefit others.

Second principle is "not be mastered by anything." Some things may seem harmless, but we can be controlled by it. For example, more than a decade ago I used to love to drink coffee. I would mix different types of coffee beans and then brew them in different ways. I gained much satisfaction from drinking coffee, but then the Spirit of the Lord prompted me to quit coffee. I was reluctant inside, but the Lord asked me: "When you are tired, where do you go first?" Then I realized that whenever I felt tired, the first thing I would do was to have coffee, rather than coming before the Lord. I then realized that my heart was controlled by coffee and it was hindering my relationship with God. Since then, I quit my coffee habit and no longer need to drink it. Coffee itself may seem harmless, but my heart was controlled by it and thus I was willing to quit for the Lord.

We need to understand that our bodies need to be united with the Lord in the spiritual sense, which means we become one with the Lord in spirit. Therefore, we must pay attention to righteous and unrighteous things in our lives, and not let both of them come out from the same person. Book of James says that "out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be." May God examine our thoughts, words and behavior so that we will not offend Him, but to please Him in our daily lives.

Pray with Pastor Tong

Lord, I thank you because Jesus has resurrected from death so that we may depart from sin and experience victorious life, and enter the glorious life of the Lord by His mighty power. I thank you and I pray in the victorious name of Jesus, amen!