It’s Christmas time again and I’ve been thinking less about the commercialism of the holiday and more about the cost of this holiday and the inflation of almost everything. I read an article that showed the most expensive house on the market at the time, and it was selling for $290,000,000. I saw a sports car for over $1,000,000. It made me think of this scripture, “You were God’s EXPENSIVE PURCHASE, paid for with tears of blood, so by all means, then, use your body to bring glory to God!” (1 Corinthians 6:20 TPT emphasis mine)

As Christians we frequently focus on God’s “free gift” that has been given to us, but have you ever thought of the purchase price to obtain that gift. Jesus Christ paid for the most expensive purchase in the universe ever paid for anything. It wasn’t a mansion or a sports car that he purchased but it was YOU! If you can go with me for a moment and think beyond the free gift of grace (which is amazing) and go beyond even the price that Jesus paid and think for a moment about who that purchase was for. The Bible says that Christ died for us “while we were yet sinners”. You and I were God’s expensive purchase. The price was the torture, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.

Here is an amazing thought. What was the intended outcome of that purchase? I believe it is twofold, number one Jesus paid this price to be able to give the Father to us and simultaneously give us to the Father. It is no accident that this scripture says, “…use your body to bring glory to God”. Besides all the other things that Christmas is, Christmas is about the most expensive purchase ever made and you were God’s expensive purchase. But for what purpose? To bring glory to God. You see the life we now live is an expression of our assessment of this expensive price that Jesus levied on behalf of the Father and us.

Here is the challenge from 1 Corinthains Chapter 6… “Surely you must know that people who practice evil cannot possess God’s kingdom realm. Stop being deceived! People who continue to engage in sexual immorality, idolatry, adultery, sexual perversion, homosexuality, fraud, greed, drunkenness, verbal abuse, or extortion – these will not inherit God’s kingdom realm”. (VS 9-10 TPT) The life we now live should be the expression of my assessment of His purchase price. “It’s true that some of you once lived in those lifestyles, but now you have been purified from sin, made holy, and given a perfect standing before God – all because of the power of the name of the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, and through our union with the Spirit of our God”. (1 Corinthians 6:11 TPT)

My assessment of what Jesus did should be expressed in the life I now live. In union and communion with the Father, through the Holy Spirit and because of the expensive purchase that Jesus made on our behalf. Not a life of sinful edifications but a life that brings glory by my expression and assessment of His expensive purchase. I leave you with this one passage of scripture, “But God’s amazing grace has made me who I am! And His grace to me was not fruitless. In fact, I worked harder than all the rest, yet not in my own strength but God’s, for His empowering grace is poured out upon me”. (1 Corinthians 15:10 TPT)