Let’s quickly revisit my last post, where I looked at the question, “Who owns me?”
“My spiritual life feels like it’s moving at breakneck speed these days. Revelation, repentance, discipline, deliverance—seems no sooner do I move through one dealing then something else pops up. I confess that I’ve been fighting discouragement over this. It was so much and covered every area of my life! I couldn’t even keep track of all the different issues – fear, obedience, setting boundaries, obligations, expectations, self-discipline, you name it. I’ve been all over the map and around the world. Twice. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit stepped through the whirl and showed me that these were simply different manifestations of ONE single issue: ownership. Who do I really belong to: Jesus or the world?”
Ah, ownership, we meet again! The issue of ownership has not been easy for me. The very word makes my flesh squeal like a stuck pig. “I don’t want to be owned; I want to be free!” That was my battle cry in the years leading up to my salvation, and ownership was THE hurdle to that salvation. I wanted a Savior, because even when blinded by bitterness and deafened by rage, I KNEW I needed saving. But I wasn’t interested in having a Lord, because that meant being owned in every way that mattered. The battle for my soul turned on the issue of ownership, and now my daily cross revolves around the same thing: Who owns me? Who is really the Lord of my life? Is it Jesus or have I enthroned someone else?
Who owns me if I’m afraid?
I want to look at fear first. I’ve had many dealings with fear over the years, but have I ever seen it so clearly as an issue of ownership? No.
So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.”
Romans 8:15 NLT
I belong to Jesus now. The Father adopted me and I am His. Every place in my heart and life where the Spirit exposes fear is a place I have not surrendered to His Lordship. What God owns, He keeps, and fear has no entrance there. When God is on His throne, I am secure in every way. So who owns me if I’m afraid? Not Jesus.
Who owns me if I Can’t Set Boundaries?
Setting boundaries, throwing off obligation, and releasing others from my expectations are ongoing issues that die hard for me. But I am getting so free that it’s frightening! And the key to my repentance and deliverance is ownership. When I am in my rightful place of belonging to Jesus, the snare of obligation finds no purchase in me and setting boundaries is easy and joyful. What’s more, when I am under Jesus’ Lordship, all my expectations are for Him and Him alone. He is my all and only so I look to Him to meet my needs and not someone else. Such freedom and provision are only found under His wings!
Who owns me if I’m subject to obligation?
You were bought with a price [you were actually purchased with the precious blood of Jesus and made His own].
1 Corinthians 6:20 AMP
I come back to this scripture often, because this is a daily battle to believe. We sell ourselves so cheaply! Jesus died a bloody, agonizing death to purchase our freedom, and we sell our souls for trinkets. That’s what obligation really is, the belief that we owe some portion of our lives (time, affection, loyalty, admiration, obedience, etc.) to another because of something they did for us or gave to us. So someone gives me a nice gift? Jesus DIED for me. What is the nicest gift in the world to that? I owe them nothing. What if someone pays off a debt for me? Jesus bought all my debt when He DIED for me. So I thank you and bless you for the kindness, but my soul is not collateral. There is no act so righteous and no amount of money in the world that will overcome what Jesus Christ did for me and IS to me.
It has taken me years and tears and one bludgeoning after another, but being owned by God is obliterating my reflexive kowtowing. The Blood of Christ is PRICELESS, and He bought me with it. That alone is what makes me so valuable! There is NOTHING that anyone can do for me or give to me that could possibly match the price paid for my soul. I am free to thank them with joy, bless them with love, and walk away untethered by guilt, untouched by obligation, and with boundaries intact. And in light of that, the question stands: Who owns me if I feel obligated to someone for something they did or gave? Not Jesus.
Who owns me now? LOVE!
Love and ownership go hand in hand. Love sent His only Son to die a brutal death. Love obeyed His Father’s will to die that brutal death. Love broke my stone heart and gave me His own, and it’s Love that I surrendered to then and surrender to now. I have a Savior and I have a Lord, and Love motivates both. I am owned by God and God is Love. So I am owned by Love. No safer, surer place in the world!
I have become absolutely convinced that neither death nor life, neither messenger of Heaven nor monarch of earth, neither what happens today nor what may happen tomorrow, neither a power from on high nor a power from below, nor anything else in God’s whole world has any power to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord!
Romans 8:38-39 PHILLIPS
I’ve never heard the concept expressed so succinctly before. So true!
Thank you Sheila, nice to hear from you! I pray all is going well for you. Bless you!
Thank you…thank you…this was a powerful message that I needed to hear ! I have lived a lifetime of obligation and this word has set me free in ways I have never known. God bless you.
I was so hoping that some of the hard-won freedom that Christ is loosing in me would be imparted in this post – so glad that it was for you, Lori! God bless you in the bliss of belong to Him and Him alone!
This has given me such encouragement…such foundation for prayer. It’s so interesting to look back over the years and notice where Truths such as this one you’re sharing in today’s post weren’t even thoughts that crossed my mind. His timing is perfect. He presents it now. Now is when He is ready for me to learn it. It is my desire to be His 100% of the time. I fall so terribly short. However, I trust He knows my hearts desire and will work this out in me. “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and… Read more »
I have struggled mightily with the Lord’s timing, Tammy, because His ways are not my ways – at all! It would be equally safe to say that His priorities are not mine either. All of which should go without saying, but it’s one thing to know this and another walk it out in reality, receiving the grace to accept when and how He works in my heart. I bless your work to believe that His love for you is beyond doubt and that the promise of being presented “holy and blameless” through Christ’s death is THE reality!