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Paul suggests, beginning with our very lives, that nothing in life is “mine.” Life is a gift. The only real belonging is the reality that we belong to God – the God who created us, who redeemed us, and who fills us with the breath of life. We, and everything about our lives, comes with a tag that says “Use as intended” – and the whole kit and kaboodle belongs to God.

So it is that Paul is carrying this message to the Corinthians who seem to have forgotten much of what he taught them in the time he was among them. They are being swayed by other teachers. They seem content returning to the dead end lives in which Paul found them. They are being manipulated by teachers who present an “eye candy” faith that is increasingly disconnected from the heart of God-given reality.

So Paul reminds them that they belong to God. Their lives are not their own. Their calling, like Paul’s calling, comes to them from the outside. They live, not for themselves, but as representatives, ambassadors, of a divine sovereignty. They have died to an old life that God might raise them to a new life and that changes everything.

Not “mine” but “thine.”

~ Pastor Kerry Nelson