Learning to Let God Break the Chains of Slavery

I’m working through 1 Corinthians. I love reading the New Living Translation. It’s easy reading and written in a way that’s easy to understand. I have the New Believer’s Bible of this translation, which has little side notes on different topics. The one that had some good things for me to hear was on 1 Corinthians 6:12 “You may say, ‘I am allowed to do anything.’ But I reply, ‘Not everything is good for you.’ And even though ‘I am allowed to do anything,’ I must not become a slave to anything.” This is the part of the commentary that stuck out to me: “Yet, as a Christian, you should only want to be controlled by and under the power of Jesus Christ. We need to so treasure our relationship with God—and the ensuing freedom from sin it has brought—that we jealously guard that relationship, wanting no thing or person to get in its way.”

What’s being said here is that everything is a choice. I choose to allow things to come between God and me. Sometimes I am so week that it doesn’t seem like it’s a choice because I’m so controlled by my own sinful and selfish nature. I am so thankful that even though my selfish nature gets the best of me more times than it should, I can still run to Jesus and seek his help. I know that it’s only through God working in me and in my life that anything good that I do, anything good that I desire is because of Him. Philippians 2:13, “For God is working in you, giving you the desire to obey him and the power to do what pleases him.” I rely on God to get me through the work when I dread going and don’t want to be there. I know that this is where He has me and He’s to teach me to rely on Him for my strength.