Not Your Own, Bought With a Price

Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price.—1 Corinthians 6:19-20.

O, how dear is every believer to God the Father, to Jesus the Saviour, and to the Spirit the comforter? Each divine person claims propriety in them. The Father by election: the Son by redemption: the Holy Spirit by inhabitation. How should this, O soul, call forth love, excite gratitude, inflame with affection, and quicken thee to glorify thy Lord! Consider daily, thou art not thine own, but a ransomed captive of Jesus. Reflect on the price Jesus paid for thy redemption. Thou art bought with blood: with blood divine: blood, spilt on the accursed tree, in direful agony and shameful death, was the price of thy purchase. So thy Saviour bought thee, at the hands of justice. He paid the utmost farthing of thy debt to law. He redeemed thee from the power of Satan; and snatched thee as a brand from the jaws of death and hell. And canst thou ever think thy redeeming Lord will leave the purchase of his blood to be the prey of the devil? After he hath bought thee at such an inestimable price, will he not claim thee as his own, and bring thee safe to glory? O, beware of indulging unbelief! Listen not to the suggestions of Satan, nor to the voice of false teachers. Fly every thought which impeaches thy Lord's love, wisdom or power. Consider, thou art thy Lord's freeman. As a chaste virgin thou art espoused to Jesus; in faith hast plighted thy troth; hast voluntarily given thyself, hand and heart, to be thy Lord's. What then is thy duty? what infinite obligations art thou under to forsake all other lovers, and to cleave to thy Lord alone, with full purpose of heart! Dost thou believe thy vile body shall shortly be sown in the silent grave? and that it shall certainly be raised a glorious body like unto thy Saviour's? How much doth it concern thee to devote that body to his service and glory on earth, which shall reign with Jesus in heaven! Is thy body the temple of the Holy Ghost? Canst thou reflect on its dignity, and debase and pollute it with filthy lusts? God forbid! Doth thy spirit enjoy sweet fellowship with the Father and his Son Jesus? Doth the Spirit itself bear witness with thy spirit, that thou art a child of God? Where is thy love to the truth as it is in Jesus? Where is thy zeal for his cause and interest? Remember whose thou art. Be concerned to live up to thy privilege and dignity. Be earnest in prayer for power to obey the obligations which infinite and eternal love hath laid thee under. "Glorify thy Lord in thy body and in thy spirit which are his."

What shall we pay th' eternal Son,
That left the heav'n of his abode,
And to this wretched earth came down
To bring us wand'rers back to God!

Our everlasting love is due
To him that ransom'd sinners lost,
And pity'd rebels when he knew
The vast expense his love would cost.

- William Mason, A Spiritual Treasury for the Children of God, Volume 1, December 13