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YE ARE BOUGHT WITH A PRICE
Paul said, "for ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit which are God's" (1 Cor. 6:20). The apostle has striven to show the Corinthians that sin is to be no part of their lives. He relentlessly pursues sin with a view to its destruction. He specifically notes that they are to "flee fornication" (v. 18), and then hauls the matter into the light of the Spirit of God which exposes it: "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit" (v. 19)? He then slays that sin at the cross, saying, "ye are bought with a price." And what a price that was! They were no longer their own, but belonged to somebody else! That is the great fact - "ye are bought!" The worldly might say this is mere merchandising, and that is precisely the point - "bought with a price" expresses the term with a double force. "With a price" indicates the greatness of the cost, that being the very life of the Son of God. The great alternative is there. Either we are bought, or we are not redeemed! But Paul asserts that Christians have been bought, and that brings consequences, the obvious one being, "ye are not your own." When a thing is bought, it then belongs to the one who bought it. Christians, who compose the body of Christ, the church, belong to him; they are his people, The conclusion then is that we are not ours to indiscriminately do what we wish. Our bodies, says Paul, are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19). Therefore, we are not free to abuse and misuese them; they must be used in the service of the one to whom they belong. What if one took something that belonged to us and appropriated it for his own selfish ends without our permission? Such would not be acceptable with us. So it is with Christ - we must use our entire beings as he has directed in his word. When we finally realize that "we are not our own;" that we, as it were, are the "property" of Jesus Christ, only then will we be able and willing to dedicate and devote ourselves entirely into his service. Our problem seems to be that we verbally assent to belonging to Christ, but often the proverbial "Indian giver" in us comes out when it comes to pleasing self. No, it must not be this way. When one gives self to Christ, he must give all the way and for all time. We can belong to Christ nominally or actually. The real thing will come out in the way that we demonstrate our willingness to belong to Christ in the life. There is no better proof as to whether or not one realizes that he has been "bought with a price" than the way he lives his life before God and other men. - Bill Moseley THE MEASURE OF A MAN
It occurs to me that a man can be measusred by the height of his ideals, the
breadth of his sympathy, the depth of his convictions and the length of his patience.
The reason that occured to me is because I read it somewhere, but don't remember
where! But let us think about it.
High ideals will rid a man of a slovenly attitude toward life in general. They give him something to "shoot" at other than the mediocre things of life. Sympathy for the well being of others ought to be broad enough to encompass all the plights of others; to suffer with them to the greatest extent that we are able. Realy sympathy is more than merely "feeling bad" that someone else is having difficult times. It is entering into those difficulties as if they were your very own. A man's convictions ought to run deep. Those that are superficial and that may be sacrificed at every whim are not worth much. Men need to learn to have convictions, the courage of those convictions and the determination to daily commit ourselves to them. And patience? Which of us really has enough of it? Patience with the weaker and the younger is part of the life of men who are what they ought to be. The true measure of a man is seen in a large degree as to how he treats those who are weaker and not as knowledgeable as himself. May the Lord help us to be the sort of men we ought to be! Bill Moseley AND ANOTHER THING
(Unexpected Gold)
He was about four years old when Evan, our "number three grandchild" stampeded (did Evan ever go anywhere any way else?) into my office hollering, "Papa, look what I found!" Opens his chubby fingers clutching all sorts of coins. Seems he had found them under my recliner chair. Guess where he headed first after that evey time he came! You ask if I made him give them bacik? Oh, yeah ... sure ... That got me to thinking ... all of us can find treasures in the most unexpected places if we are alert for it. There's one now ... a happy smile on a child's face ... an aged person who has grown old gracefully and not grumpily, still retaining his/her dignity and happiness. There is a mother who disciplines her child in a loving way ... and that child responds without fear and then starts to behave. Or how about that husband who still looks upon his wife of many years with obvious love ... and a wife whose adoration for her husband has never dwindled. Then there are brethren who are not afraid to express their love one for the other ... knowing full well it will be returned. These are all real treasures; they are all around us, and all we have to do is look for them and learn to enjoy them. These are the true treasures, far exceeing anything of a monetay or material nature. It is too bad too many folks are so wrapped up in self they can't see such treasures before their very eyes. - Bill Moseley |
