To Encourage You

Romans 14:8 “We are the Lord’s.”

Do you realize that if you are a Christian, you are someone’s property?  We are not our own, but we have been bought with a price, we are told in 1 Corinthians 6:20.  This relationship is reiterated time after time in the Bible.  We are called God’s slaves in Ephesians 6.  He is our Master and as such we are obligated to obey Him. 

But we are not just His possession in this sense alone.  We are his sheep in Psalm 23 and Psalm 100.  We are His body in 1 Corinthians 12.  We are His bride in Ephesians 5. We are His children in 1 John 3.  We are His brothers and sisters in Hebrews 2, and we are His friends in John 15.  In each of these wonderful descriptions of relationship, as His possession we derive many very unique and wonderful benefits.  As brothers of Christ, we are joint heirs with Him of everything He possesses (Romans 8:17).  As the bride of Christ, we are recipients of His great love, as well as His great joy which flows over into our lives.  As His children, we receive all the good gifts of a perfect Father (Matthew 7:11).  As His friends, we receive the blessings of continual intimate fellowship and communion with One Who empathizes with us and is touched with the feelings of our weaknesses (John 15:15, Hebrews 4:15).  As His sheep, He constantly cares for our every need. 

But beyond all this, we are not just His possession in all of these many ways, He is ours.  We have the awesome privilege of calling Him our God (Psalm 113:5-6). He is also our Brother, our Bridegroom, our Shepherd, our Father, and our Friend.  He has given His life both for us and to us.  What more could anyone ask for?  What more could anyone ever possess than God Himself and all that goes with this. 

Yet so many are clinging to the relatively miniscule things they now own as they resist at all costs giving their lives to God.  There definitely are things that the one given to Christ must give up.  And there definitely can be hardships, even persecution, that come to the child of God in this life. However, Jesus has promised to all believers “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life” (Mark 10:29-30).  What a promise to those who are His.