BOUGHT WITH A PRICE

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”  (Galatians 2:20)

"Do you not know that your body is a Temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body."  (1 Corinthians 6:19,20)

My life has been paid for by Jesus Christ. My life belongs to Him. Therefore, I can't do what "I" want to do, I must do what "He" wants me to do. 

-- Ron Brown, Assistant Coach, University of Nebraska, in Sports Spectrum

#4978

LONGING FOR GOD

“O God, You are my God,
    and I long for You.
My whole being desires You;
    like a dry, worn-out, and waterless land,
    my soul is thirsty for You.”  (Psalm 63:1 GNT)

I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God. The lack of it has brought us to our present low estate. The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people.

-- A. W. Tozer in “The Pursuit of God”

#4249

A PANTING DEER

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for You, my God.” (Psalm 42:1)

This psalm got made into a song, and sometimes when people sing it they think it means they are supposed to long for God or like church services and church songs.  But this psalm is much bigger than that.  It means that God is my life-giver and therefore my desire for life cannot be satisfied apart from Him.

This is not a picture of Bambi wandering through a leafy-green, stream-laden forest with a slightly parched throat.  This is desert country.  No rivers, just wadis -- gullies that would contain water only in the rainy season.  Now the wadis are dried up, and the deer is going to die if it doesn’t find water.  That is us.  We were made for soul satisfaction and simply die without it.

If you want life, you want God.  You want Him the way a deer dying of thirst wants water.  You want God more than you know.

-- John Ortberg in “The Me I Want To Be”


#4113