Yesterday was a funny moment. I've had plenty in the last couple of days but I haven't had a chance to get away and get my type on (that's what happens when your fiance has been gone for 10 days and returns to town, the computer just takes the back seat). Anywho, yesterday morning our pastoral staff got together to pray. It's a usual Tuesday tradition. We normally never start on time, but it's always good together with those you are serving with and pray together. As those of you who read the blog know, I've been navigating through 1 Corinthians recently, taking in chunks at a time. Just enjoying Scripture. One of my new favorite verses is this and it helped bat lead off :

1 Corinthians 4:20 (ESV)
20For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power.

More to come on that later. At some point during the prayers, I remembered a verse I had read and the analogy that came to mind was great. Here it is :

1 Corinthians 7:3-4 (ESV)
3The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

In the Bible, the Church (corporate, not local) is often referred to as a bride. The analogy stretches throughout Scripture as God is returning for His bride and we will be "carried away" to the place He has prepared for us. I remembered reading this verse and thought about the Church vs Jesus. In the Biblical metaphor, He is the husband, we are the wife (easy fellas here we go).

The wife does not have authority over her own body, the husband does.
The husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

The Church does not have authority over her own body, Jesus does.
Jesus does (but more importantly did) not have authority over His own body, the Church did.

The wording of the sentences make it seem as if we have "power" over Jesus body. Instead it couldn't be further from the truth. In giving ourselves to Jesus, we surrender everything we know about living life as ourselves (or simply living life as Justin). Instead, our lives are fully given to Him. After my trip through Romans, it is more easily put like this :

Romans 6:17-18 (ESV)
17But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

Our body is not our own. When it comes to Jesus, this is when it gets immense. For His body was not His own. Instead, He took what He had while being seated in the Heavens and placed Himself here on earth to reveal the ultimate in bodily surrender. The whipping, the scourging, the beating, the mocking. The Cross. His body was not His own, but instead it was that of His brides and given to her fully.

My prayer is that we would no longer hold on to the things that are our own. Our own words, our own actions, our own deeds, our own ideas, our own agendas. That instead of doing things according to [insert your name here] we are functioned to that of our Husband [Jesus' name here]. I laughed because this verse is about sex when read in context (though with this connection it still works). So I leaned over to Josh Thompson our worship pastor and began laughing saying "I think I just prayed a verse about sex." Hard to get back on track after that.
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Now playing: Ambient Generation - Hidden