The Cross Means I Belong To God

The Cross Means I Belong To God

Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body. –1 Corinthians 6:19-20

I love watching the Olympic Games. I can’t watch the runners compete without hearing in my head the theme from Chariots of Fire as well as the voice of Eric Liddell’s character saying, “I believe God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.” Liddell understood that his body belonged to God, and he wanted to honor God with his body.

When we truly comprehend the painful price paid for us to belong to God, it simply does not fit that we could say with our lives, “I have been bought with a price so I can live as I please.” If my body is not my own, if it belongs to God, I have no right to defile my body, waste my energy, or serve myself. If my body belongs to God, every power, every passion, and every ability is altogether God’s. But while this is easy to say, it is so hard to live!

A real redemption demands real holiness, and the price paid for us demands from us a practical surrendering of ourselves to the service of others and the pleasure of God. But what a sweet surrender! Belonging to God is full of delight, not demands. Offering God your body and honoring him with the body he has given you is a great joy and privilege of life.

Has God given you energy? Burn your energy in service to God. Has God given you intellectual prowess? Honor God with your mind as you engage an unbeliever in evaluating the claims of Christ. Has God given you a body that is disfigured or disabled? Honor God with your spirit as you display joy in place of self-pity, gratitude in place of resentment. Are your arms empty? Perhaps God has emptied them so you will be able to wrap them around someone who is lonely. Is your heart broken? Perhaps God has allowed your heart to be broken so you will be more sensitive to the hurts of others. Honor God with your heart as you open it to the hurts of others. There is no greater freedom than in belonging to God and no greater satisfaction than honoring God with your body.

Redeemer, you have bought me with your pain and with your death, and I am yours. Such a sacrifice demands that I keep my body from being defiled, my mind from being polluted, and my heart from being corrupted by the world.

DIGGING DEEPER