Friday, May 24, 2013
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I remember the last time I bought a house. It was a while ago, but I still remember that nervous feeling of stepping out on a limb that night to say to the owner, "We'll buy it." I was thinking, "Where in the world are we going to get the money for this?" And then the hand shake, the signature on that document that committed most of my working life to paying for it.
But the story was really told in two signs on the front yard. One was there when I came to look at the house. It said "For Sale." Then after we committed ourselves to buy it, they changed the sign. Of course it said: "Sold." I felt pretty good when I drove by there and said, "Hey, I know who that's sold to. That house is mine." And I knew that no one else was going to be able to drive up there and say, "Well, that's a nice house. I'd like this house." Nope! It was sold by right of purchase, and no one could have it but me!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Sign On Your Life."
Our word for today from the Word of God; we are in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. Listen to these words: "You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body." Okay, there's a sign on your life. It doesn't say like it did on the house that I bought: "Sold." The sign on your life and mine says: Bought. You are a purchased person. You belong to the person who paid for you. Are you living that way? Are you living for the One who gave His life so you could have hope, so you could have a life, so your life could have meaning, so you could have an eternity in heaven, who paid with His life for yours?
One way to tell: what you are doing with your body? That's a specific area that this passage highlights. You have no right to expose that body that He purchased, to devalue it, to degrade it, to neglect it. No, no, no, He paid for it. It cost Him His life to purchase you, including that body of yours. "Therefore," it says, "to glorify God in that body." Honor God with your body.
It's almost like there's another sign on you that says: "Reserved For Jesus." You know, like a table at a restaurant, you can't have that table; it's reserved for someone else. As you're tempted to look at something or listen to something today that's dirty, remember you are a purchased person. You can't allow that garbage to pollute a mind that was bought by the blood of the Son of God.
So many of our daily choices come into focus and are made a lot clearer when we remember our - okay, here's a word that I'm making up - boughtness. Our boughtness! We've been bought. It's not my money, it's not my car, it's not my house, it's not my business, it's not my body, it's not my talent. It isn't my right; I don't have the right to plan my own future. I've been purchased! You and I were purchased at the highest price in history. The Prince of Glory bled and died to buy you back from sin; to buy you back from being owned by this world; to buy you back from the Devil's plans for your life.
Don't let anyone have what Jesus paid so much for. The sign on you says: "Bought By Jesus."