Friday, December 21, 2007

Bought with a price



If you would be saved you must not be your own. Salvation is through being bought with a price; and if you be bought with a price, and thus saved, remember, from that day forward you will not be your own. Today, as an ungodly sinner, you are your own master, free to follow the lusts of the flesh; or, rather Satan is your great tyrant, and you are under bondage to him. If you would be saved you must by the aid of the Holy Spirit now renounce the bondage of Satan and come to Christ, saying, “Lord I am willing to give up all sin, it is not in my power to be perfect but I wish it were, make me perfect. There is not a sin I wish to keep; take all away; I present myself before thee. Wash me, make me clean. Do what thou wilt in me. I make no reserve, I make a full surrender of all to thee.”

And then you must give up to Christ all you are, and all you have by solemn indenture, signed and sealed by your own heart. You must say in the words of the sweet Moravian hymn —

“Take thou my soul and all my powers;
O take my memory, mind, and will,
Take all my goods, and all my hours,
Take all I know and all I feel;
Take all I think and speak, and do;
O take my heart, but make it new.”

Accept the sacrifice, — I am worthless, but receive me through thy own merits. Take and keep me, I am, I hope I ever shall be thine.

From a sermon entitled "Faith Illustrated," delivered August 21, 1859. Flickr photo by Kip Guenther; some rights reserved.

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