“KNOW ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Cor. 6:19, 2019What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. (1 Corinthians 6:19‑20)). “You are Mine,” He says. “I want you for Myself, for My own joy. I want; to display My own nature and character in you; not only that, I want to gratify My own heart in having you near Me.” Is it not marvelous that it should be so? When we came as poor sinners to Him our thought was, Will He take us in? We came as beggars to a rich man’s door. We wondered if He would have any interest in us at all. But “Know this,” He says, “the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for Himself” (Psa. 4:33But know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself: the Lord will hear when I call unto him. (Psalm 4:3)). Should it not then be counted our highest privilege, our sweetest joy to put ourselves day by day entirely at His disposal?
Yet, alas! the majority of Christians today seem to think that while they cannot do as they like in a worldly, immoral way, they may do just as they please―pick and choose as they will―in a religious way. If you were your own you might, perhaps, do as you like; but if you are His, it is due to Him that you should be found in the way of His will. That is of the utmost importance. If the Holy Ghost has come to dwell in your body it is because you do not belong to yourself, but to Him whose Spirit has sealed you.
What right, then, have I to make my own plans, or go my own way and leave His pleasure out of my calculations?
Take an illustration. Suppose I am passing a gentleman’s house. I say to myself, “It is a very fine evening, and I think I should like a ride in the country.” I walk up the grounds to his stable. A policeman finds me yoking the gentleman’s horse into his brougham.
“What are you doing there?”
“Oh, no harm! I am just borrowing this gentleman’s horse and carriage. I thought I should like a little airing with a friend of mine this evening.”
“What do you mean? The horse is not yours!”
“Oh, I only want it for a little while, you know. I am not stealing.”
“Man! do you not know that without the owner’s permission your act is a felony? Have you no respect for yourself? It is a felony, I tell you.”
And you, believer, who have the Holy Ghost, are no more your own than the gentleman’s horse was mine. From the crown of the head to the sole of the foot you are His: you are bought, and paid for, and possessed by His Spirit. Not to recognize this is practical unrighteousness. You may know a great deal; you may be very earnest and active in service; but if you are not making a full surrender to Him, who by His blood has bought you, and by His indwelling Spirit has claimed you, it is, we repeat, nothing less than an injustice to Him.
It is not sufficient that we should think that such and such things, and such and such a service, are right. We must know what His mind is. We must have His judgment about everything.
Suppose I am absent from home for a few weeks. When I return my boy comes running to meet me. “Oh, father,” he says, “I have been working so hard for you while you have been away.” I can see that he has just left off, for the perspiration is still standing on his little face. “Come into the garden, father, and see what I have been doing for you.” I go with him, but only to find, to my disappointment and amazement, the garden in the saddest plight possible. First he has pruned the trees, but, oh, the mischief! The blossom-bearing boughs, which gave such promise a few weeks before, lie withered on the ground. He has done for them!
“But, father, come and look further: I have been digging also!” And what do I find? Rows of peas destroyed, the onion bed dug up, and other devastations. “Working so hard, father”
“The harder you worked the worse for me, my boy,” is my lament.
“But I was in such earnest!”
“I have no doubt of it; but if you had attended to what I said, how pleased I should have been.
Did you not get the letter I sent, giving directions as to my wishes?”
“Oh yes.”
“But did you not read my letter?”
“I did, but I did not think much about it: I was really so busy. I saw a boy in the next garden working for his father, and I thought I should like to do some work for you.”
And is not this where thousands of young converts are today? But it will not do. We have His mind in His written Word, and are responsible. We have in our bodies the Holy Ghost as the living witness that we are not our own, we are CHRIST’S OWN. GEO. C.