Day 25 – God Says We’re Marvelously Made; Lust Destroys us From Within

Lust devalues others and ourselves.

Psalm 139:13-16 –

¹³ For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. ¹⁴ I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. ¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. ¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

In our mothers’ wombs, God made each of us, crafting us marvelously so that we would reflect Him. Even as embryos, He knew and designed us, and charted our days before we were even conceived.

1 Corinthians 6:13-20 –

The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. ¹⁴ And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. ¹⁵ Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! ¹⁶ Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” ¹⁷ But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. ¹⁸ Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. ¹⁹ 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, ²⁰ for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

God designed our bodies not for sexual immorality or lust, but for the Lord. The same is true for everyone. And Christians, by the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ, our bodies are no longer our own but are one with Him, for we were bought with a great price. We are the temple of God. We are so united to Christ that to participate in sexual immorality, we must take what is united to Christ, ourselves, and unite to whatever object we desire. This is true even when we lust in our hearts, though outward sexual immorality is a more heinous sin.

Paul urges us to flee sexual immorality because it is different from other sins in that we sin against our own bodies (1 Cor 6:18). Herman Bavinck, one of the best theologians from church history, explains it this way,

Fornication considers the neighbor an object and views one’s own body in a similar light, forgetting that both belong not to us but to God. As Paul noted, while other sins are “outside the body”—there the world enters us—sexual sins are sins against our own bodies (1 Cor. 6:18) because the sin proceeds from the self, uses the body from the inside to the outside, and thus destroys the body with the body itself.[1]

There is an intimacy and closeness associated with sexual sin that is not present in sins “outside the body.” Sexual sin destroys the body from within as lust enslaves us. This sin objectifies both the person targeted and the one consumed by evil desire, diminishing the value and humanity of both.