“Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
See we forget sometimes that our old lives and choices are washed away and we can make the choice to live new lives and be Holy. See when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior He is just that, our Lord - the one we follow - we must learn and study His ways so we can be like Him. And He is our Savior - He has taken our sin and has washed us clean - in this case we are (new creations) not stuck in our old way of life. See in verses 9-10 right before this Paul is sharing with the church in Corinth that their old ways of living was leading to death and separation. We need to read them with a loving heart and not get caught up on the ones we may struggle with but release them to our Lord.
Verses 9-10 say, “Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God.” See these are selfish and keep us from letting go and seeing all that God has for us. See we mustn't miss these statement that can help with our transformation. Verse 11 ends like this; "...made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." When we call on the name of the Lord we are saying, I am yours, and the Spirit of God leads us and guides us to say not my will but yours.
When we let our hearts go to His word and we start seeking our new way of life we see that we are holy and we don't fix our sights on what we did, we fix them on who we are in Christ, then we live with purpose and direction. We are created in His image to reach the lost and show people how much He loves us. See He sent His one and only Son while we were still sinners, so that we could feel that love and surrender our will. Paul was once a Pharisee and a murderer and lived with no joy or hope, but then he saw Jesus! he believed in who He was and let Him change who he was from the inside. His life never was as tough as it was going to be but he had true joy and hope because of Jesus. We can have that same joy and hope and live everyday with a smile and a light that will shine bright for others to see. Paul shares in verse 19 and we need to see it and remember it. “Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself." We were cleansed, so let's live that way and keep our eyes on Him. Amen