Focus: 1 Corinthians 6:20 - KJV
20. For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.
Philemon 1:8-16
In the days of servitude otherwise called slavery, when a merchant dropped money or money’s worth for a particular person, the same lost his liberty and became the property of the merchant. He could not do anything unless the merchant permitted it. He lived for the merchant that paid for him rather than have his captors slaughter him. This is akin to the relationship between Christ and man. Man sinned and was condemned to death. Christ came without sin and substituted Himself for the man in death. By that substitution, He paid for the man that the man may live for His sake. Hence, the body of the man and indeed, his totality becomes Christ’s. There is a story in the book of Philemon about a man called Onesimus who was Philemon’s slave. He had behaved uncomely to Philemon by “stowing away” and eventually landed with Paul. Upon his conversion to Christ, Paul would have loved to retain him but knew that by law it was wrong to do that without the consent of the owner, Philemon, who was equally at the time, “a brother in Christ”. In the same vein, since we now belong to Christ in that He paid for us by laying down His own life, we ought not to yield our bodies or indeed ourselves to anything without the knowledge and approval of Christ. Those who do so put themselves into bad state. But the relationship we have with Christ is described better. Christ Himself says He no longer calls us servants but friends. Even at that, it is bad friends that betray their friends by backstabbing them with evil.
Beloved, you need to understand that you do not own yourself in strict sense. You belong to Christ. It does not matter whether you are born again or not: you belong to Him. A refusal to accept Him as Lord is responsible for the state of affairs where pain is the order of the day. For when a slave was bought, the captor was no longer obliged to cater for the slave. Imagine such a slave denying the lordship of his new owner: was he not liable to hunger, maltreatment and all sorts? This is what those who refuse to accept the Lordship of Christ put themselves into in the hands of the devil in whose captivity they remain, even though they have been ransomed ordinarily by Christ, whose yoke is easy.
SOLUTION: Jesus is not a mean Lord. Accept His Lordship and start living as His friend rather than slave. Accepting His Lordship is denouncing the power of the evil captor over your life. Once, you do, you are set free from the captor and released to the one who bought you with a price. Then, you remain in the friendship of your new owner by obeying His commands so that the evil captor is made to be far from you.
Lord Jesus, we know we belong to you: please continue to reign in our lives forever in Jesus’ name. By the reason of your Lordship over us, please cut away the fangs of the captor from our lives in the name of Jesus. We agree to take your easy yoke, please use it to bring us good life here and hereafter by your power in Jesus’ name.
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