PSALM 119:94 – I am yours; save me, for I have sought your precepts.”
THEME OF THE DAY: OWNED BY THE LORD. As we live the Christian life, we proclaim the Lord is “my” Lord; Jesus is “my” Savior and many other expressions of us claiming as our own the One True Living God. And this is right.
Christianity is extremely personal, but it goes two ways. We are not only a people possessing God as our own. God makes a bold and unashamed claim that we are His possession. Today’s scripture starts with this truth – I am yours. The Apostle Peter writes – 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. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy (1 Peter 2:9-10). Grasping this truth – we are owned by the Lord – radically changes how we live our Christian life.
First, to be owned by the Lord means we no longer are to live for ourselves both in our wills and desires – For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised (2 Corinthians 5:14-15). Friends, when the Lord Jesus stamps “Mine” on our lives, we die to self. No longer are we to make decisions and live our lives driven by the pronoun “I”. Life now revolves around “Him” who by His shed blood purchased us for His own possession.
Another truth of being the Lord’s bought property that radically shapes how we live the Christian life is in personal holiness. Since the holy Lord owns us, the whole of the Christian life becomes one of pursuing holiness. As His possession, we have no right to play with sin, entertain worldliness, or cater to fleshly passions. Again, we hear from the Apostle Peter – Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God (1 Peter 4:1-2). It is illogical for a Christian, owned by the Lord, to tolerate or embrace in any form the sin Jesus died for. To allow such is to forget we are not our own. Let these words of the Apostle Paul remind us of this truth – 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).
Owned by the Lord. Here is joy. Here is peace. Here is power. Here is hope, and here is what directs all of life for the children He possesses; a life consumed with His will as a people dying to our wills because we are His!
PRAYER: “Father, I praise You for creating me, redeeming me, and conforming me to Christ’s image.”
QUOTE: “Think often of being the Lord’s possession and watch how your joy in the Lord deepens.”
Because of Him,
Pastor Jim