September 27
The Continual Burnt Offering" D o you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are Gods."
God wants us to realize that the body, which is such a wonderful evidence of His creative power and wisdom, should be used for His glory. To abuse the body by destructive habits is to displease the Lord, and is self-inflicted wrong.
The salvation purchased for us by Christ’s atoning death is threefold. Spirit and soul and body (1 Thessalonians 5:23) have all been bought by the blood of Christ and all are to be devoted to His glory. We cannot grow in grace if we are indulging in sinful and fleshly lusts of any kind. Carnality is the bitter foe of spirituality. The body and its appetites are to be kept in subjection by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 9:27). Only thus can there be success in the Christian race (Hebrews 12:1) The body is to be yielded to Christ (Romans 12:1), and not to be polluted by that which would impair its usefulness under the guise of Christian liberty (Galatians 5:13).
I have been “bought with a price”—
A price no pen can compute;
The wondrous grace of the Buyer
Forbids my soul to be mute.
Redemption, the price of my pardon,
Unties the string of my tongue—
The praise of my gracious Redeemer
By me shall ever be sung.
I have been “bought with a price”
Th’ Eternal was willing to die,
That I a poor worm of the dust
Might share His glory on high.
Oh, wonder of wonders, that He,
The Creator of heaven and earth,
Should assume the form of a servant—
Like sinful mortals have birth!