1 Corinthians 5:1 - Not Self Medicated

 

1 Corinthians 5:1

NKJV

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife!

 

NLT

I can hardly believe the report about the sexual immorality going on among you—something that even pagans don’t do. I am told that a man in your church is living in sin with his stepmother.

 

This is really salacious! There are some commentaries that speculate that this man was a teacher in the church. Regardless, if he was a teacher or not…it was something that even the pagans found repugnant. I think if you look past the salaciousness of the actual sin itself, which don’t get me wrong…it’s wrong. But if you really dig down into this, really try to get to the root, you can see this is about doing what you want…regardless of right or wrong. This man, teacher or not, chose to do something because if felt good, it didn’t matter to him if it was right or wrong.

 

I wonder if we all dug down into why we commit the sins that we do, if we wouldn’t find the very same thing? Sure, at times there are psychological reasons, but maybe dig a little deeper. It felt good and, in that moment, we didn’t care about the consequences. As I write that, I am speaking to myself here!

 

I can look at times that I have sinned and the root of it, if I’m honest with myself, is that if felt good and I didn’t care about God or anyone else in that moment. I chose that particular sin to change how I felt, because in that moment life was too hard to deal with.

 

We need to learn how to deal with ourselves in a positive manner! I wonder if we don’t “self-medicate” with our sins? A wise person told me once that “sins are fun, otherwise no one would do them”  Sometimes, sins are funner than the life situation we are in at the moment. But it is so fleeting! It’s not there very long and will leave us feeling worse than we did before. We feel sad; and angry; and ashamed. All of these are not from God. But that’s the lie, isn’t it? It’s time to quit living on how we feel and start living in the spirit; so that we know who our loving, living God wants us to be.

 

Not self-medicated today,

cej