1:18,19
Now we see why we are to live holy lives, and it is not for the reasons that people normally think. It is not because we will get “beaten up” otherwise, and definitely not to stop us enjoying ourselves! Rather it is because God considers us so precious. We were redeemed from an empty way of life. Life without God is ultimately empty. The empirical “proof” of this is there for all to see, no matter what you do in life you will die, under atheism that is it (of course it isn’t actually it, all will face judgement). And we were redeemed with the precious blood of Jesus, something infinitely more valuable than silver or gold.
We need to realise how precious we are to God, and we need to tell the world how precious they are. Sexual immorality always comes up as an obvious sin, and rightly so for it is important and it so well illustrates the difference between God’s ways and man’s ways. The world’s ways lead to degradation of humans, treating them as mere sex objects. We are far more valuable than that. God’s commandments are what they are because we are so important, and because He cares for us so much.
The world’s ways are empty, but we have been redeemed from this empty way of life. Note that we needed to be redeemed. It was not just a matter of learning a new way of living, rather we were held captive by sin. We were also under judgement. We needed to be forgiven and we needed to be set free. The blood of Jesus shed on the cross achieves that forgiveness and freedom.
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