I am accepted... I have been bought with a price and I belong to God.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ~ Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you who you have received from God? You are not your own you were bought at a price.

The idea of belonging to someone else brings up many hot and tempered feelings.  The movement of independence and doing things on our own have become so ingrained in the way that we live our lives that when someone says we have been purchased or bought or we belong to someone else it automatically brings bad ideas and strong feelings.  The idea of belonging to someone brings thoughts of slavery, and servitude and persecution, but the way you look at the idea of belonging to someone really depends on the master.

The words "bought at a price" refers to slaves being bought at an auction.  Jesus was the high bidder.  He was willing to give what ever it would take to buy our soul.  He bought us so that he could take our penalty we had to pay for our sins.  The idea of being owned by a master is not one people really tend to like, but it all depends on the way you are treated by the master.  During the days of slavery in the south, indentured servitude when America first began and other times and places where people had servants around the world, there were good masters and there were bad masters.  Slavery took such a bad name because of the bad masters.  But there were masters who bought their "slaves" to save them from a worse fate.  Indentured servants way to the new world were paid in return for work, and many times this was an apprentice program where the master would provide for the travel expenses, shelter, food and other necessities and teach them a trade that in seven years when their debt had been repaid they could make themselves apart of society.

Jesus is not an angry master!  He is a master full of love and mercy.  He gives us what we need, He gives us boundaries when we need them to protect us, and he teaches us lessons when we need to learn something even if it means punishing us so we will learn our lesson.  God is fair and just and he bought us and paid a very horrible price for us, even if we do not want him to be our master.  Jesus still paid the penalty even if I choose never to choose him.

Paul calls himself a servant to the Lord throughout the New  Testament.  He understood that he had been bought by the Lord and that he had to devote his life to the calling the Lord had placed on his life, but he did it willingly and graciously, and he was rewarded for it.  His life was not easy.  Even when he was thrown in jail he still called himself a servant of the Lord because he knew that the Lord would protect him and guide him and would not let him suffer undue harm.

We need to begin to see ourselves as someone who has a master.  Someone who we rely on to take care of our needs and to love us but also to give us boundaries and teach us right from wrong.  If we could do that ... our lives would be amazingly different because the Lord would be the #1 center point of our lives.