I Am in Christ Jesus

“Bought with a Price”

1 Corinthians 6:19 (NIV)

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

Every noble character and life is based upon self renunciation. A man, in order to make his mark upon the world, must lose himself in some great cause, that e.g. of his country, of science, of art, of humanity. Is there an all absorbing aim in which men generally may justly lose themselves? If there be, it must be the highest, all comprehending, perfectly and lastingly satisfactory. Christians have found this secret: they live to God in Christ. They are not their own, for they are bought, they are owned by the Son of God.

~ J.R. Thomson 

A friend of mine was having an earnest conversation upon the necessity of full consecration with a lady who professed to know Christ as her Saviour, but shrunk from yielding herself fully to Him. At last she said, with more outspoken honesty I am afraid titan many who mean exactly the same thing display, "I don't want to give myself right over to Christ; for if I were to do so, who knows what He might do with me; for aught I know, He might send me out to China." Years had passed away when my friend received a most deeply interesting letter from this very lady, telling of how her long conflict with God had come to an end, and what happiness and peace she now felt in the complete surrender of herself to her Lord; and referring to her former conversation she said, "And now I am my own no longer, I have made myself over to God without reserve, and He is sending me to China." Do you think that this lady is less happy obeying the Divine call, and working the Divine will out yonder in China, than she was when she shrunk from that will, and preferred to live a life of worldly ease and self-indulgence at home?

~ W. Hay Aitken