YOU'RE EXCEPTIONAL - YOU'RE ONE WITH HIM

"But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit." 1 Corinthians 6:17

Oh, girls!! Who we are in Christ just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it? If you have accepted Christ as your Savior, YOU ARE UNITED WITH THE LORD AND ONE IN SPIRIT WITH HIM. That, my sweet sister, makes you EXCEPTIONAL!

Click on the picture above so that it enlarges on your monitor. Look at it for a minute and think about what it means to you to be ONE in spirit with the Lord. Can you see your face among the faces in the drawing? Go ahead, click on the picture. I'll wait for you to come back.

Did your heart flood with joy over what it means to you to be one in spirit with the Lord? Mine sure did!

I remember what a hard concept that was for me to embrace. Because I was a young child when I made my profession of faith, my mental concepts were very literal. I'm sure I must have pictured a tiny Jesus opening a door into my heart and carrying His suitcases over the threshold as he moved in and took up residence. Don't laugh. That's how kids are at that age. I can still remember my Sunday School teachers saying, "Let's take up our love offering for Jesus" and I literally thought they were going to put my dime or quarter in an envelope and mail it to heaven.

As I grew older, I began to understand the differentiation of the spirit but it was many years before I truly understood what it meant to be ONE with Him.

In the passage this verse is taken from - 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 - Paul was writing to the church at Corinth primarily about sexual immorality among its members. The temple of the love goddess Aphrodite was in Corinth and it employed more than a thousand prostitutes and priestesses. Sex was part of their worship ritual. That's hard for us to even imagine, isn't it? But that's the culture the new believers in Corinth were living in and Paul wanted them to know that what was acceptable behavior among many of their peers, was not appropriate for those who had committed their lives to Christ Jesus.

When Jesus comes into our lives, His Spirit literally takes up residence in our spirit. God created us as a spirit being, you know. Our spirit is the essence of who we are. We are a living spirit. We are a living essence from God (spirit), that He gave an expression (soul) in a tangible physical package (the body). We are a living spirit who has a soul housed in an earthly body.

Therefore, since the Holy Spirit indwells our spirit, He is also housed in our earthly bodies (but certainly not confined to it like we are). Does that sound a bit mystical? Maybe it should. There is always a bit of mystery when it comes to the things of God. His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. They are SO much higher! They are beyond our understanding. And aren't you glad they are? I sure am! Frankly, I'm very thankful there is mystery associated with God. Would He be the awesome God He is if we understood every little thing about Him and could "put Him in a box"?

Most of you would not even consider sexual immorality and I'm blessed to know that. But, can I ask you a few personal questions, anyway? You don't have to answer me. You can just think about them and talk to the Lord about them. How many of you watch TV shows (or movies) where sexual immorality not only exists but is the theme of the show? There's certainly plenty of opportunity these days!

Let's go a step further. How many of you are just a tad disappointed with your current circumstances? How many of you are just flat out disappointed with marriage? You know the drill . . . the romance of your dating relationship has been replaced with the humdrum of married life and things aren't as much fun any more. Your handsome Prince Charming now keeps you awake with his snoring . . . he leaves his whiskers in the bathroom sink every morning . . . and you have to change his pillowcase every other day because the man drools in his sleep! Yuck! You still love the big lug but you've grown just plain old disillusioned. So what do you do? Do you find an avenue of escape from reality in romance novels? Do you find a measure of fulfillment in the fantasy of imagining yourself as the heroine in the arms of Mr. Right?

TV shows and fiction may sound like relatively harmless activities when you compare them to the practices of the temple prostitutes Paul was writing about. But, girls - the battle for your soul always begins in the mind. Sin is always a DOWNWARD SPIRAL. A wise man once said, "Sin will take you further than you meant to go. Sin will keep you longer than you want to stay. And sin will cost you more than you want to pay."

Perhaps it begins innocently enough with escape into the fantasy of fiction. But it's there that your mind registers that there is something "out there" more sexually exciting than your current reality. Your mind begins to entertain those thoughts and then your senses are aroused by some sexually explicit scenes on television. Perhaps one day you stumble across some pornography on the internet. It's readily available. Perhaps the next day you decide to take just "one more" quick glance at that website. Soon thereafter, perhaps someone of the opposite sex at work - or even at church - begins looking appealing to you . . . certainly better than that too busy husband that barely communicates with you. Perhaps it begins with a casual conversation. He's a good listener. You need a friend. He might even be able to give you good counsel about relating to your husband better. After all, he's a guy too! Then, before you know it, Mr. Appealing and you are involved in a full-fledged affair. Don't laugh, girls. It happens all the time. The sad thing is that statistics show us it happens within the church, among Christians, as often as it happens in the "world." It can happen to you if you don't remember that YOU ARE UNITED WITH THE LORD AND ONE IN SPIRIT WITH HIM.

Oh, girls, if we would just wake up every morning and see our face superimposed on Jesus' face like in the picture at the top of this post. If we would just wake up every morning and say with a grateful heart,
"Father, thank You for living in me. Thank You for the fact that I am united with You and ONE in spirit with You. Lord, I give You my spirit, soul and body today and ask You to help me not defile or betray any part of myself and the oneness I have with You."

Oh, girls, let's live like the EXCEPTIONAL women God has called us to be. WE ARE UNITED WITH THE LORD AND ONE IN SPIRIT WITH HIM.