v 20. God bought you with a high price. So you must honour God with your body.
I have been bought with a price and I belong to God.
I have very few things of significant value in my house; this laptop on which I am writing these notes probably cost more than anything else. Unless of course you count the gas boiler …. Or the washing machine …. There are no paintings by some great artist, no gold or precious trinkets that need to be kept in a safe, no antiques or collectables to adorn the shelves, and certainly no wads of money under the floorboards or the bed! I guess I would be a lot more protective of things if I had invested a great deal in them.
As a child of God, he has accepted you and cares for you because he has invested a great deal in you. God paid a high price for you, giving his only beloved son to redeem you from sin and adopt you into his family. On God’s part there was no casual ‘I’ll have that one’ when he looked at you. He freely gave up his son Jesus because he wanted you in his family. You have been accepted by him and you belong to him – and that brings the obligation on your part to honour him. That is something that we learn to work out in a practical fashion – with our bodies – the people we are and the way we live. Honouring God is more than mental or academic assent to certain beliefs; it is in the using of our lives, our physical bodies, that we honour the God who has accepted us and brought us into his family.