Bought With A Price

            December 31st, 2014 my husband and I signed the papers to become owners of our second home. That day, after leaving the law offices I posted an update on my Facebook page that said, "Yeah! The Bank officially owns our house! We just get to live in it!" How true those word are! Many of us can relate, because we work very hard, making lots of sacrifices to pay the mortgages on our homes. We call them our homes, but the truth is that they are not ours until the full price has been paid for them. For a lot of us that could take a lifetime!

            This reminds me of a scripture passage that has been rolling around in my spirit for the past few days. It reminds me that I too am not my own. This earthly house has been bought and paid for, but not by me, it was bought and paid for by Christ. I am not my own, I am His. But what does it mean for us to be bought and paid for? Most of us would say that we understand this principle and that in the end we all know that we are not our own. But do we really understand what this means? Do we understand that even though we get to live in this earthly home of ours, it is not ours to do with as we please? Do we understand that when He paid the price to purchase our earthly bodies, we now belong to Him and not to ourselves?

"Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!"  1 Corinthians 6:15 (ESV)

         Paul here is talking to the Corinthians about sexual immorality. He is discussing with them that sexual immorality affects the person involved from the inside out. When I read this today at first I didn’t think much of it, but then I started to think about a television show I watched not to long ago where there was a long extended scene of sexual intercourse. I was also reminded of another television show that slipped in a gay couple who kissed one another right in the middle of the episode. Do we not realize that everything we take part in Christ is also taking part in? That television show you are watching right now, Christ is watching it with you.

"But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him." 1 Corinthians 16:17

        Paul tells us that we who are joined to the Lord become one spirit with Him. When we became Christians we became joined to Christ Jesus in the most intimate sense. He came and dwells in us by the Holy Spirit. Everything you see, He sees. Everything you watch, He watches. Everything you read, think, taste or take part in, He is right there with you. Christ does not close His eyes or leave your presence after church on Sunday. Everywhere you go, He goes. We may not be going out and joining our bodies to prostitutes, but perhaps there are other areas of our lives that He would not approve of being a part of?

        We talk about how we must put Christ first in our lives. We post it on social media, and we proclaim to the world that He is first in our lives. But yet we put Him to the side and don't consider what He would think of some of the things we watch, the things we say or the things we take part in. If He is first, then shouldn't His opinion of what we involve ourselves in matter? He is only truly first when we consider His opinion in every single area of our lives.

"Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body." 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

        Do we understand how precious we are to Him? Do we understand what we cost? Our lives are not our own. We have no rights, we never did. Our rights were stripped away by sin and we became its slave. But, because of His great love He paid the ultimate price, a price that no one else could pay and bought us from the bonds of sin and death. He did not do this so that we could be free to live the life that we want, but that we would be free to live the life that He wants for us.

"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." 1 Peter 2:9-10

        Peter tells us we are chosen by God to proclaim Him, but what does that proclamation look like to others when we choose to join Him to sin? We have to make a choice sooner or later. You can't have the world and Christ too. You can't acknowledge Christ presence in your life on Sunday and then join Him to ungodliness on Monday. Wherever you go, He goes. What you watch, He watches. What you read, He reads. What you do, He does with you.        Christ has bought you, His redeemed people, which makes us His property, not ours. When my husband and I bought our home, we did not pay for it outright, it is still owned by the bank who lets us live there. Your earthly house is not owned by you. It was paid for and purchased by Jesus Christ. You only get the privilege to live in it. It is His, given to us to use in the hopes that we might use it for His glory. 

          I am not saying that you should become so legalistic that you completely cut the world out of your lives. Because that would go against scripture. Christ calls us to be lights to the world, not to be a part of the world. I think that we, as His purchased possessions, have become lax in our pursuits of holiness and become more of the world than we realize. We must remember that we are not our own. We gave up all our rights the moment we accepted the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sins. The moment we called Him Lord, we became His and His alone. 
          Putting Christ first means that we acknowledge Him in every single area of our lives. It means that we seek His approval and not our own. In the end, you have no rights because Christ bought them all that day on the Cross. You and I were bought with a price, let us therefore, from this day forward, seek to glorify Him in all that we say, do, watch, read, and think. If there is an area of your life right now that you know He does not and would not approve of, may I urge you to let it go and lay it down. If you truly want to have Christ first in your life, then you have to be willing to lay down those things that hinder His work in you. We need to start asking ourselves if Christ would approve of it before we join Him to it. We are not our own, we were bought with a price. Is that price He paid so meaningless that you would continue to make Him a part of it? Let it not be so. Amen.