Who owns you?

"Nobody tells me what to do! I’m my own person." Independence and self-reliance are much admired by us, aren’t they? But we are not really as ‘free’ as we might imagine. In my life, there are various overlapping responsibilities to people, organizations, and principles. I belong to God. Bev, my wife, has a claim on my life that is exclusive. The church I pastor has a right to a big chunk of my life. The government takes a bite out of my income. The list continues.. but, you get the point. You know how these demands compete, even conflict, with each other. We need to make a living and our family needs us. Where’s the balance? It’s not always simple to discern the line between the demands of being a disciple of Christ and a citizen of some earthly realm!

In the sermon I preached yesterday, one point touched on the word, ‘consecration.’ Drawing on a lesson learned from a king of ancient Judah, I noted the most important decision facing us today: giving ourselves, without reservation, to the Lord Jesus Christ! Upon becoming king in Jerusalem at age 25, Hezekiah took note of that the once holy ground of the Temple was now a warehouse, full of junk! He brought the priests together and demanded: "Consecrate yourselves now and consecrate the temple of the LORD, the God of your fathers. Remove all defilement from the sanctuary." Consecrate? Other translations say, "purify or sanctify."

Hezekiah’s reforms and call for renewed dedication was met by a huge house-cleaning effort. The Bible says that "they went in to purify the temple of the LORD, as the king had ordered, following the word of the LORD. The priests went into the sanctuary of the LORD to purify it. They brought out to the courtyard of the LORD's temple everything unclean that they found in the temple of the LORD. The Levites took it and carried it out to the Kidron Valley."

This is an apt metaphor for us personally. God is no longer housed in temples of stone. He lives, by His Spirit, in us! 1 Corinthians 3:16 says, "Don't you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you?" The competing demands of life begin to find order when we make the priority choice to give ourselves first and entirely to God! All other claims - family, spouse, job, personal desire - fall secondary to His ownership. Order flows that the decision to consecrate ourselves to Him!

If you continue to read the story of Hezekiah’s re-dedication of the priests and the Temple, you will find that two things happened in Judah - the nation rejoiced and she recovered her identity. Consecration will bring joy, though at first, it may cause pain as the Spirit cleans out the sin that clutters the hallways of our hearts! Consecration will also restore our identity, allowing us to be the people of the Lord who live for the honor of His Name.

"Or 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, NLT)
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Take time to be holy.
Speak oft with thy Lord;
Abide in Him always,
And feed on His Word.
Make friends with God's children;
Help those who are weak,
Forgetting in nothing
His blessing to seek.

Take time to be holy.
The world rushes on;
Spend much time in secret
With Jesus alone.
By looking to Jesus,
Like Him thou shalt be;
Thy friends in thy conduct
His likeness shall see.
　
Take Time To Be Holy
Longstaff, William D. / Stebbins, George C.
© Public Domain